Danny Phantom Episodes 52 through 60
by NoahPhantom
Summary: Chapters are all separate stories, but connected like the episodes of the original series. I tried to mimic the intrinsic style of the original episodes as best as I could, but there are of course major plot devices of my own invention. Please, enjoy!
1. Episode 52: Back to Back

EPISODE 52—BACK TO BACK

Danny yawned and slammed a hand down on his alarm clock. It was time to get up for school again… He hadn't gotten a decent amount of sleep last night, due to the unexpected arrival of Johnny 13 and his shadow. True, Danny had beaten them fairly quickly—he had the advantage, since Johnny wasn't familiar with the fact that Danny had gained ice abilities. And true, he might have deserved it, since the night before was totally ghost-free, and he actually had time to study for Lancer's pointless Shakespeare quiz! But still, the encounter last night cut into his precious beauty rest as usual, and now he was dragging his feet along the ground to the bathroom—

He stopped short and groaned at the ceiling as a burst of cold, blue breath erupted out of him, followed by the familiar feeling, a small chill that resonated through his body from his head to his feet. What was it this time? Ember? Skulker? The Box Ghost? …No, if it were the Box Ghost, he would have already heard a "Beware!"

He ran to his bedroom window and tried to focus his eyes, his eyelids still a little crusty. He squinted, and against the dark background, he could make out the form of a small ghost leaning against his own arms in the air, floating lazily backwards past Fenton Works. He wasn't much bigger than Youngblood.

So as not to wake his folks, Danny whispered his normal catchphrase instead of shouting it: "I'm going ghost!" He jumped out of his open window, and the usual band of light appeared at his waist and streaked down both ends of his body, turning him into the ghost kid known as Danny Phantom.

He flew up to the new ghost and stayed level by his side. Danny was a little surprised to note that this ghost appeared to be sleeping while floating down the streets. He was about to say something when the eyes opened.

They had floated into a patch of sunlight from the sun that was now beginning to reach over the buildings of Amity Park. When the sun struck the young ghost's eyes, he opened them, looked over to his side and spotted Danny. Silently, but in a flash, the ghost was standing in midair, but still floating backwards, a wary eye on Danny.

"Um… Hi," Danny said, not knowing how to start a friendly conversation with a ghost; he'd never tried. Usually, the ghost showed up with ghost rays blasting, trying to knock Danny out of the sky. This was the first ghost he'd seen that was waiting for him to start the conversation.

"Hello," the young ghost said. His voice was the high voice of a prepubescent boy; he certainly didn't seem like a threat.

"I'm Danny." He extended a hand. "Danny Phantom."

The ghost stared at Danny's hand without taking it, but he slowed to a stop and nodded. "The Halfa."

"Wow." It'd been a long time since any ghost had called him the Halfa. "I mean, yes. Half a human, half a ghost."

"I was wondering if I'd ever see you," the ghost said. "My name is Wardback."

"Wardback?" Danny said. It was a strange name… it definitely didn't seem to be a fitting name for any little kid. The boy had a messy mane of black hair, and cold, red eyes. His face was very round, a perfect circle, yet he didn't have the usual charming boyish features of dimples and a wide smile, freckles or sparkling eyes. But he certainly didn't look incredibly dangerous… Looks could be deceiving, though.

"Yes, that is my name," said Wardback. He smiled stiffly. "I share a certain similarity with you, Phantom." He straightened out his arms, and a gray disk appeared at his waist and spread across his body in both directions—just like when Danny transformed. In a second, Wardback's transformation had swept across his entire body, and he had taken on a human form that was entirely different. He had a pasty face and extremely blond hair, with cheeks that looked like every aunt and grandma would have pinched. His eyes were big, round, and hazel, and all traces of severity were gone from his expression. He continued to lazily float in the air.

"You're… You're a half-ghost, too?" Danny said, gaping.

"Hard to say," Wardback said, leaning back and picking under his fingernails. "It's been thousands of years since I gained consciousness as I am now. I don't quite remember what I was before, but I know I can turn myself into a perfect image of a human being."

"Thousands of years?" Danny asked, frowning. "Forgive me, but you look like you're… well, younger than me, definitely…"

"I don't know exactly how old I am right now," Wardback said. "But I assure you, my current youth has no bearing on my age." The thin gray disk appeared again and swept across his body, turning him back into the grim-faced ghost Danny had espied from his window.

"What do you mean?"

"I can determine in which direction I age," Wardback said. "My ghostly power is almost boundless. I am the ghost of direction. I specialize in turning things backwards. If I begin to grow too old for my liking, I simply age backwards… if someone points a ridiculous _thermos_ at me… I would wave my hand and it would face backwards from where it was intended to go, and it would suck in the user instead…" His brow lowered.

Danny felt a chill go down his spine that wasn't from his ghost sense. Was this kid threatening him?

But Wardback smiled. "Not that you would do that. I assume you'd never suck a ghost into your thermos without first getting to know them."

"Unless they're not interested in getting to know me," Danny agreed.

Wardback turned around so that his back was to Danny, and then suddenly flew backwards until he was just behind Danny. Danny turned around to see Wardback a few inches from his face.

"I am interested in you," Wardback cooed softly. "Can we chat?"

Danny felt his face go red. "You're… interested in me?"

"You might hold an answer as to where I came from."

Danny nodded. "Well… I have to get ready for school and I shouldn't be out here too long… but would you like to meet me behind this house tonight at 9?" It had to be late, so that no one would see them; but it also had to be before Danny's curfew at 10.

Wardback nodded back. "Then tonight we shall meet for a conversation on the nature of our ghostly halves." He folded his arms and legs and floated lazily backwards the way he came; he winked at Danny as he left.

* * *

><p>Tucker looked overjoyed when Danny broke the news to them, but Sam looked nervous.<p>

"Another half-ghost?" Tucker said, almost a little too loud. "That's awesome!"

"Awesome?" Sam asked. "Tucker, this could be a problem. What if this ghost goes on the loose? Didn't you hear what Danny said about the thermos?"

"I'm sure that Danny could kick his butt in a second," Tucker said. "Come on. Right, Danny?"

Danny stared at them for a moment before answering. "I don't know. I'm not sure exactly how powerful this kid is. But… I don't think he's a threat. Not all ghosts are evil. I'm walking proof of that."

"Right," Sam said. "We'll add Wardback to the list of benevolent ghosts we've encountered—oh, look! If we don't include you, that _doubles_ the list. You and Frostbite."

"Hey, and Clockwork," Danny argued.

"Clockwork is neutral. He doesn't count."

"Well, I get the same knowledgeable air from Wardback as I got from Clockwork," Danny said. "I think Wardback is neutral, too."

"But compare how many evil ghosts we've seen—countless—to the good ones!"

"Just 'cause he's a ghost doesn't make him evil," Tucker said. "That's racist, Sam."

"It's not racist, it's preparing for the most likely possibility!" Sam shouted. "I think Danny should take some stuff with him."

"Relax!" Danny said. "If he's evil, I'm sure I can take him." He didn't actually know if that was true, but he wasn't worried because he was confident that Wardback wasn't evil.

"That's what I like to hear!" Tucker said.

"You know what _I_ like to hear?" came a voice from behind them.

They turned around to see the hulking form of Dash Baxter above them, holding up their Shakespeare quiz from the day before with a large 57 written on it in red. "When I fail a quiz, I like to hear the terrified squeals of a nerd in pain to take my mind off of it!"

Danny sighed as Dash grabbed the front of his shirt and held him up with a fist cocked on the other arm. The fist swung towards Danny's head—and then suddenly, Dash was facing the other way and he wasn't holding Danny anymore. His rage-contorted face became one of shock as he toppled over and landed on the disgusting cafeteria floor.

Tucker and Sam exchanged glances, and Dash leaped up from the ground and shouted, running the other way and bursting through the doors at the end of the cafeteria, holding his nose.

Danny sat back down and Sam hissed at him. "What were you thinking? What if somebody saw something?"

Danny shrugged. "I don't even know what I saw."

Tucker stared. "That wasn't you?"

On the other side of the table, the air flickered, and then a form came into view. Bright and messy blond hair, big round hazel eyes and high, colored cheeks on a pasty face.

The three of them almost leaped back. Danny recovered the fastest. "_Wardback?_"

Sam's eyes widened, and Tucker broke into an open-mouthed grin. "So this is Wardback?" they both said at the same time.

"I turned him backwards," Wardback explained. He laughed. "It wasn't difficult. Now, before anyone notices me, I must be off…" He turned invisible again, but it was impossible to tell if he was still there or not.

"Danny?" Sam asked. "Why isn't your ghost sense going off?"

Danny was thinking the same thing. "Maybe it's because Wardback is in human form?"

"I don't like this," Sam said. "That if for some reason we needed to find him, we couldn't use your ghost sense or the thermos."

"And how long was he listening?" Tucker said. "I'm excited to have met him, but was he spying on you?"

"Probably to see if you two were going to convince me to try to capture him," Danny said. "I hope he saw the part where I asserted that he wasn't evil."

"I don't know about this, Danny."

"Well, I do," Danny said. "I made a promise! And I'm positive he means me no harm, or anyone else in the city. He looks like he's just content to let things pass by while he lazily floats across towns. When have we seen everything going backwards? It seems like he hadn't used his powers until that bout with Dash."

"I'm still worried," Sam said.

"Worried about what?" came yet another voice from behind them.

"Oh, hey, Jazz," Danny said, turning around. "Worried about… um… what grade we got on the Shakespeare quiz."

"So you're sure it wasn't about ghosts?" Jazz said.

"Why would you think that?"

"Well, you certainly seem to worry about that a lot more than you worry about school lately," Jazz said.

Almost on cue, Mr. Lancer popped over to the table. "Ah, Mr. Fenton. I've been looking for you, on account of your Shakespeare quiz. Since we're going to the library for the guest speaker today instead of going to class, I figured I would hand these back during lunch rather than during the assembly, so you won't be distracted from the speaker… and also, I wanted to personally talk to you about your grade." He slammed a paper down onto the table in front of Danny.

Jazz's eyes narrowed, and Danny sighed and slumped his shoulders.

"What's that look for, Mr. Fenton?" Mr. Lancer said softly, and lifted up a hand, revealing a 66. Danny groaned and put a hand under his chin.

Mr. Lancer looked down at the paper again. "Oh—I apologize." He reached down and turned the quiz upside-down to reveal what he actually had gotten—a 99.

Danny seized his quiz violently and let out an exhilarated laugh. "I GOT A 99?"

"The highest grade in the class," Mr. Lancer said. "I only took off one point because in your analysis of 'Hamlet,' you spelled the word 'ghost' wrong."

Danny barely bit back a snort of laughter.

"An honest mistake, I'm sure, but I need to stick with my spelling policy. At any rate, Mr. Fenton, I'm not surprised. I know you're capable of this work. But I'm disappointed that I don't get to see it more often. I want you to put this sort of effort into everything. And if you can do that, you will soar through the skies."

"I already soar through the skies," Danny muttered. "That's why I don't have time to study."

"And whether you have to get your sister to oversee your studying habits, or seal yourself in a room away from distractions, or mutter arguments with yourself, you really should keep up this work," Mr. Lancer said. "That quiz was a large percentage of your grade so far, so your class average right now has risen to a B. If you work hard until the end of the quarter, you could absolutely scrape an A minus. It won't be easy, and you'll probably only barely able to scrape it, but you can do it. I _believe_ in you, Daniel. I'm a teacher. The greatest thing in the world for a teacher is for him to bring out the best in a student. Our next Shakespeare quiz will be on 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' I want to see that again." He pointed to the 99. "And Daniel… If you have one of those lives where things always seem to come up last-minute—" Danny looked over at Sam and Tucker and Jazz. "—then you should study early." He nodded. "It's not due until a week from Monday, but I suggest reading it during any free time you have, even starting today. If I see you doing nothing in Study Hall today, I'll take points off in advance." He smiled. "Have a good day." He placed a 92 in front of Sam and an 80 in front of Tucker.

"Mr. Lancer is right, Danny," Jazz said. "You're a smart guy! Being a smart fighter isn't enough. One day you're going to need to channel your talents somewhere else to get a degree and then a job!"

"Or, I could phase into banks… and—"

"DANNY!"

"I'm just kidding! Relax!" Danny laughed. "They'd probably have ghost shields in the future, anyway."

Jazz put her hands on her hips in the traditional disapproving big-sister-pose. "That better not be your reasoning why."

"It's not," Danny said. "Relax, will you? I'll try to study, but, you know. It's just hard sometimes. You wouldn't really understand unless… well, unless you had these powers."

"I understand better than you think," Jazz said, still frowning, and she turned to leave.

Danny looked at Tucker and Sam. "Does she have ghost powers?"

* * *

><p>It was 8:59. Danny floated silently, waiting. Any moment now, maybe Wardback would show up. Or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe Sam had scared him away with all her talk of making sure they had some way of capturing him.<p>

But from what he knew of Wardback, it seemed like the ghostly kid wouldn't have been worried about that. He gave the impression that he had extreme confidence in himself.

Danny's wristwatch turned to 9:00; at that exact moment, a gust of wind picked up behind him, and Wardback himself floated contently backwards past Danny and halted twenty feet or so away.

"Danny Phantom," Wardback said. "The Halfa. Did you know that was my nickname until I left the Ghost Zone?"

"No, I didn't," Danny said. "When did you leave the Ghost Zone?"

"Thousands of years ago."

"When did you go _in?_" Danny asked.

"I woke up in the Ghost Zone with little memory," Wardback said. "And even what little memory I had left me after these thousands of years. But sometimes I think that I may have been the first to connect our world to the Ghost Zone."

"The very first?" Danny asked. This would be incredible.

"I've gone over it many times in my head," Wardback said. "I appeared in the Ghost Zone. Mostly there were animals. Very few self-aware ghosts; fewer who spoke my language. Or perhaps I did not explore far enough to find too many. I found a few, though. Pandora. Hotep-Ra. Clockwork."

Danny smiled widely at the mention of Clockwork. How long had the ghost of time been alive? It must have been eons… He listened further as Wardback continued. "But each time I displayed my ability to turn into a human, they were amazed. They had never seen anything like me before. Never seen a human. And then, while I was there, random portals to Earth began to manifest inside the Ghost Zone. I believe I may have triggered their appearance. It would make sense, that the master of the backwards would be able to create portals to and from the backwards dimension of our world."

Wardback held up a hand, and eerie laughter emanated from behind Danny. He looked around and saw a ghost portal opening up behind him; the green energy let loose a blast of light as an Ectopus burst forth from the portal, snickered, and flew away.

"Hey!" Danny shouted. "What are you doing? I need to catch those things; they cause trouble wherever they go and one of these days they're going to hurt innocent people!"

Wardback waved a hand in the air. "Flooding causes damage to many homes every day but you do not attack the water."

Danny groaned. "You _can't_ attack the water. The difference is, I CAN do something about these guys! And they don't have a reason for doing it other than that they enjoy it! They can't be allowed to get enjoyment from peoples' suffering!"

"You are a noble ghost, Danny Phantom," Wardback said. "But I do not entirely care for your moral outburst. It is just a part of nature, and besides, don't you think adding a few backwards elements makes the world more interesting?" He smirked.

"Wait!" Danny yelled. "Have _you_ been letting ghosts into our world?"

"On occasion, I admit I have done so," Wardback said. "But never on purpose. I don't try to, but I don't really care if it happens."

Danny's glare loosened a little bit, but he maintained it mostly. "Please. You shouldn't allow ghosts to terrorize our town!"

"DON'T WORRY; WE DON'T!"

Danny looked back and flew out of the way as a blast of ecto-energy shot from his father's gun, pointing out the window directly at them. The ray zipped across the night sky, lighting up the side of Fenton Works, until it ended directly on Wardback's chest. Wardback spun in the air and fell sideways down to the ground with a thud.

"NOOO!" Danny shouted. "DON'T SHOOT HIM—YOU'LL PROVOKE HIM!"

"Then I'll just have to shoot you, too!" Jack Fenton yelled, firing another ray; Danny's body contorted around it to avoid contact, and then he swooped down to help Wardback, avoiding another shot from Maddie as she popped up in the window next to him.

"Wardback!" Danny yelled. "I'm so sorry about my parents—"

"YOUR PARENTS?" Wardback bellowed, bursting off the ground and hovering over Danny, staring fiercely down. "YOU SET ME UP?"

"What?" Danny shouted. "No! No, I didn't—"

"LIAR! YOU ASKED ME TO COME HERE AT 9:00 AND THEN YOU COORDINATED AN ATTACK WITH THEM. DO YOU THINK I AM AN IDIOT?"

"No! I swear, I didn't!"

Another blast of energy missed Wardback's face by an inch. He held up a hand, and the next blast from Jack's ray gun flew from the wrong end of the gun into the house and blew a hole through the opposite side.

Jack stared at his gun, which was now facing backwards. "I didn't think I was THAT bad of a shot…"

Wardback flew into the air and turned around. A blast of light erupted from his back and slammed into Danny; his body started contorting wildly and he felt pain everywhere.

"FOR YOUR PUNISHMENT, PHANTOM, I WILL TURN YOUR ENTIRE WORLD BACKWARDS!"

The ground crumbled away, and Danny fell, spinning out of control, screaming, until with a crash, he landed on his bed, which collapsed under the force of the impact. He stood up, breathing heavily, as Jazz popped into his room.

"Danny? What on earth?"

Danny looked around. "Jazz! Did you see that?"

Jazz frowned. "I just got here."

Danny pointed at the ceiling, which he was amazed to see was intact. "But—but—the ghost—"

Jazz bit her lip. "Oh… Were you playing ghost fighter in here?" She smiled softly, but Danny could tell that she was uneasy. "I'm sorry to have interrupted. You're… sure you're okay? Everything's all right upstairs?"

Danny stared at her, something unsettling his mind. "Wait. How did you get in here if the door is closed?"

Jazz looked like she was about to give a friendly laugh as she said, "Not everyone needs to use the door, Danny." But then her face fell, looking as though she'd just said something wrong, and she turned away, grimacing. "But I'll use the door if it makes you feel better." She opened the door and walked out.

"What the heck?" Danny said, and then he ran to his window. "Wardback!" But he shielded his eyes as the sun hit his face. "What? The sun? But it was dark out…"

_I WILL TURN YOUR ENTIRE WORLD BACKWARDS…_

What had just happened?

The worst crossed Danny's mind. He struck a stance and called, "I'M GOING GHOST!"

And nothing happened.

Danny clutched his hair and screamed. "THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!"

When he turned around, both his parents were there. "Honey?" his mom said softly. "What's the matter? You were screaming."

"The—The ghost!" Danny cried without thinking. "Wardback!"

"A ghost?" Jack cried, and he ran to the wall.

Danny's heart leapt up to his throat and then exploded as Jack's head turned intangible and he stuck it out the wall, looked left and right, and then pulled his head back in. "None that I can see! Well… apart from myself and your mother."

Maddie looked very concernedly at Danny's face, which had turned completely white. She put her hands on his shoulders. "Now, honey, I know it must be really very hard, being the only person in the world without ghost powers, but I want to be sure you're okay. You're not losing it, are you?"

Danny gasped and screamed, "THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD WITHOUT GHOST POWERS?"

"Don't think of it like that!" Jack said, bounding over. "Your lack of powers makes you unique! Why, you're the only person in the world who can pass through a ghost shield!"

"And no ghost would ever attack you because you're not a threat to anyone!" Maddie said, clasping her hands. "Doesn't that make you feel better?"

Danny didn't have time to respond with a resounding NO, because someone else screamed, "I AM THE BOX GHOST!"

The Box Ghost rose from the floor with his arms high. "BEWARE!"

Jazz phased through the floor behind the Box Ghost and landed in a ninja-like pose. "Mom! Dad! Let's do this!"

Jack Fenton pounded a fist into his hand, and a thin black disk spread across his body, morphing him into the ghost that Danny had seen once before, when he altered the timeline and accidentally made his own father half-ghost. He looked like a thicker Vlad Plasmius, except with a sporting smile on his face.

Maddie followed half a second after Jack, widening her stance and pummeling her fist into the floor. Rather than a disk, a spiraling strand of black swept over her body like a rapidly coiling snake, and where it left, her teal jumpsuit turned blood-red. The coiling black loop split into four as it passed across her head, other arm, and legs; the black part of her suits became white and her hair became bright green.

Jazz finished the process. She stamped a foot on the ground, and instead of a black disk or a strand, it looked like red dye was being poured from her feet and running _up_ her legs. Where it reached her black shirt, it turned into a stream of white and continued upward. Her hair whipped as if a strong breeze was blowing, and strand by strand, it flowed into a bright green, like her mother.

Danny gawked at his family as they set to work beating the overalls off of the Box Ghost. They punched and pummeled and blasted energy until he flew through the roof, shouting, "I AM BEWARING! I AM BEWARING!"

The three Fentons transformed back into their human forms, and they all looked at Danny with looks of concern, as he was shaking in shock. Jazz took his hand. "Come on, little brother. I'll fly you to school."

* * *

><p>It was true. All around school, the students were phasing their hands through their lockers instead of opening them, and people were flying through the halls through one another to get to their classes. Paulina was leading a cheer outside the school when they arrived—but it was seven Paulinas, six of them in a human pyramid with another Paulina doing a dance with the cheer.<p>

"Hey!" Danny shouted. "I have to ask her how to do that."

He ran over to his locker, near which Sam and Tucker were already gathered. They smiled when they saw him. Tucker laughed at Danny's intensely freaked-out expression. "Hey there, buddy. You look like you've seen a couple hundred ghosts!"

"You don't remember either?" Danny moaned.

"Remember what?" Sam asked.

"The ghost of things backwards. Wardback! He came and screwed everything up. You guys don't remember me talking to you about it yesterday?"

"Are you all right?"

"I'M COMPLETELY SANE!" Danny screamed. "WHY DOES EVERYBODY KEEP ASKING ME IF I'M ALL RIGHT?"

He looked around to see everyone staring at him, and he put a palm over his face. "I swear, I'm sane. Nothing should be like this. In the real universe, I'm the only one of us with ghost powers! Don't you guys remember the accident in the lab?"

"In the Ghost Portal when it was being built?" Sam asked. "Of course I remember. That's what took away your ghost powers by accident!"

"That's what… what?" Danny shouted.

"Calm down, Danny," Tucker said. "What were you saying before? The ghost of things that are backwards?"

"Yes!" Danny said. "Wardback. I was talking to him when my parents attacked him, and he accused me of setting up an ambush. He changed the entire world around so I'm the only person WITHOUT ghost powers!"

"Let me get this straight," Tucker said. "You thought that… you were the only person in the world _with_ ghost powers?"

"I didn't THINK it!" Danny shouted. "I—wait. Vlad Masters! The mayor. Is he half ghost too? He was already half ghost—did that change?"

"Vlad Masters?" Sam said. "I don't know that name. But everyone's half ghost by birth."

"Vlad never came to Amity Park?" Danny said, bewildered.

"Fenton."

Danny turned around to see Dash standing above him, and due to habit he tightened in preparation for an impact. But Dash looked just as concerned as Danny's friends or parents.

"Fenton… are you all right?" Dash asked, scratching his head.

"You're not gonna… shove me into a locker?" Danny squeaked.

"Shove you into a locker?" Dash gasped. "What kind of jerkwad would pick on the only kid in the school without ghost powers? What makes you think I would do that?"

"You used to do it all the time," Danny muttered.

"But then you got defenseless," Dash said. "I mean… No offense."

Sam and Tucker looked at each other. "We gotta get to class," Tucker said. "Come on, Danny." They turned and flew away down the hall.

"Yeah, me too, Fenton, but I'll catch you later," Dash said. "You sure you're okay?"

"Why do you—" Danny cut himself off as he stared down the hall. "The—WARDBACK!"

Wardback was floating slowly down the other end of the hall, rubbing his head. For some reason, he was floating forwards this time. Dash looked down and caught sight of him, too. "What's that little kid doing here?"

"Dash! That's—" Danny thought quickly. He couldn't say exactly what happened, or Dash would think he was crazy. He thought of something else that was still true, but that Dash would understand. "That's the kid who took away my powers!"

"_What?_" Dash shouted. He bolted right next to Danny, then grabbed him under the arms and jettisoned down the hall to where Wardback was floating. They turned down the other wing to see Wardback still floating slowly. Dash dropped Danny and leaned back, thrusting his arms forward for an intense energy blast that slammed into Wardback from behind and sent him careening into the wall at the other end.

As if the world was a movie displayed with a bad projector, the entire atmosphere flickered briefly when Dash's blast made contact, and again when Wardback slapped into the wall. Danny stared up into the ceiling. "If we can beat him… It looks like everything will go back to normal!"

Dash landed and pointed an angry finger at Wardback. "Hey! Did you take away this kid's ghost powers!" He stomped the ground. "Admittedly, I shove kids into lockers and I blast them in the back, but no one has the right to do what you did! Give Fenton back his ghost abilities!"

Wardback slowly staggered into a standing position and he glared down the hallway. "He had what was coming to him. He set up an ambush on me."

"What?" Dash said, looking at Danny.

"That's not true!" Danny screamed, running up next to Dash. "If you had listened to me outside Fenton Works yesterday, I would have told you that! My parents' attack had nothing to do with me!"

"Liar!" Wardback shouted, and snarled. He slammed the air in front of him with an open palm, and Danny and Dash spun around backwards so hard that they smacked into each other and slammed into the walls behind them.

Dash stood and spun his arms in a windmill. In a winding path from his arms into Wardback, the earth below the floor of the hallway erupted and when it reached Wardback, its impact launched the child ghost through the ceiling. Everything went black for a good two seconds, and then returned as Dash grabbed Danny and flew through the hole in the ceiling.

"How did you do that thing with the ground?" Danny shouted.

"Everyone has an element as a half-ghost," Dash yelled back. "Mine's earth. Yours was ice, remember?"

"Oh, I remember," Danny said.

Wardback was standing on the ceiling, his eyes and muscles bulging. Behind him, a portal was expanding above the school.

"He's going to try to escape into the Ghost Zone!" Danny yelped.

Wardback laughed, and jumped into the air. With a sudden kick, a form that was all too familiar popped out of the Ghost Zone portal and flew backwards into the air behind Danny and Dash.

"Who has dragged me from my hunting grounds?" Skulker bellowed.

"See the skinny boy behind the dumb jock?" Wardback announced, pointing a finger at Danny. "He is the _only human in the world_ without a side that is half-ghost!"

Skulker stroked his chin. "Hm. The only full human in the world." He grinned evilly. "An excellent prize. To whom do I owe my gratitude?" He turned, just in time to see Wardback back-flip through the closing portal. The world violently flickered again until the portal closed. "Ah, well. I'll thank him later… after I mount your head on my trophy wall, human child!"

"Danny!" came a yell from Sam as she and Tucker phased through the ceiling.

"We heard a ruckus and… Who is _that?_" Tucker gawked.

"Skulker," Danny said. "A hunter ghost. He's after me!"

Sam and Tucker struck poses, each of them turning into their ghost alter-egos. Sam's outfit was still black, but it had splotches of green instead of purple. Tucker's outfit was a hot pink shirt and shoes with yellow shorts and a baby blue beret. "Stupid unchangeable ghost outfit," he muttered.

Dash grabbed Danny. "We'll go through your parents' Ghost Portal," he said, flying into the air towards Danny's house. "But I don't know how we can find him in the entire Ghost Zone."

"Oh, I think I know how," Danny said.

"Our teachers will understand," Dash said. "It's not like we need to learn much when everyone can fly and shoot energy from their hands."

"Why are you being so nice to me, anyway?" Danny asked.

"Well, 'cause you're my tutor," Dash said. "You're the top kid in our class 'cause you don't have ghost fighting to drag you down."

"Well, that's good to have known," Danny said. "If I didn't have ghost powers, I wouldn't have a life, either."

"Thanks for helping me on that Shakespeare quiz," Dash said. "I got an 85 on it, by the way. I don't know how I would have done without you!"

"You would have gotten a 57," Danny said.

"Geez, you did that fast!" Dash said. "You're crazy good at math, too."

They phased through the ground in front of Danny's house, directly to the lab where Jack Fenton was working. Danny ran up to his father and tapped him on the shoulder. "Dad?"

"What? Whoozat?" Jack Fenton yelled and leaped up with the Fenton Crammer. "Oh. Danny! Shouldn't you be in school?"

"Sorry, Dad. Ghost troubles."

"Well, then of course you need to leave school a little early if it's about ghosts!" Jack yelled.

"Yeah, I know," Danny said. "Dad… Do you still have the… the Boooomerang?"

"The Boooomerang?" Jack belted. "Of course I do. It's in the vault!" He phased through the ground and rose back up with a metallic, gray and green boomerang.

"How would you program this to find a specific ghost?" Danny asked hopefully, bouncing on his knees.

"Well, you would have needed it to track him previously, otherwise it wouldn't know what to look for," Jack said.

"Well… How about powers? Can you make it track a ghost with a certain power?"

"If you gave me a couple years, I might," Jack said. "There's a lot of ghosts out there, you know."

Danny thought for a moment with his chin in his hand. "Oh!" he said, snapping his fingers. "What about age? Maybe Wardback might be the oldest ghost in the Ghost Zone."

"Sorry," Jack said. "I'd need more time to upgrade it."

"More…" Danny gasped. "That's IT!"

* * *

><p>"Wow," Dash breathed as he carried Danny through the Ghost Zone. "I've never been here before. How do <em>you<em> know where you're going?"

"I've… been around," Danny said as he fixed a small tracking device inside the Boooomerang. "I still can't believe Dad said this thing runs on self-generating power."

"Yeah, but only when in the Ghost Zone," Dash reminded him. "It takes its energy from just being in the ghostly dimension."

"But the point is, it'll run infinitely in the Ghost Zone," Danny said. "Which is perfect for what I've got planned for Wardback. Man, is _he_ gonna be surprised!"

"You still haven't explained to me what you want me to—_whoa_."

They'd flown into Clockwork's lair. A giant grandfather clock shape stood as the center tower, with castle turrets shaped like cogs jetting out awkwardly at different heights on the side. More cogs, but only partially showing, stood vertically around the base of the castle with its large double-doors. The castle seemed to be ancient, since the stone comprising it was discolored and cracked in places. But there wasn't a sun in the Ghost Zone. What had discolored the rocks?

"We need to find Clockwork," Danny said. "He's helped me before. Maybe he'll help again."

"I thought all ghosts from the Ghost Zone were bad," Dash said, still using his childlike voice of awe as they drifted down to the double-doors.

"You may come in up here," called a voice.

Danny and Dash looked up to see the face of the clock swing open. Clockwork was floating behind it, smiling at them; Danny and Dash ascended and landed inside Clockwork's time management room. There were strange portals leading to different times, a wall full of medallions shaped like cogs with the letters "CW" adorning them, and Grim Reaper statues on the wall holding scythes.

"This is really cool but really freaky," Dash said as the ancient ghost before them turned into a middle-aged man, and then into a small child even younger than Wardback.

"Clockwork," Danny said. "You may not remember me, but—" He stopped as Clockwork raised an eyebrow. "Sorry. That was stupid. Of course you remember me. Your lair exists outside of time, doesn't it."

"Indeed," Clockwork said, turning again into an old man; his voice remained unchanged. "And what an interesting twist the parade of your timeline has just taken."

"You probably know this, because, well, you know everything," Danny said. "But it was caused by Wardback. I need your help. Would you… help me?"

"I'm afraid you're going to get spoiled, Daniel, if you keep coming to me for help," Clockwork said, turning into a middle-aged man ghost again. "You're cheating a little bit. Don't you remember what happened the last time you cheated?"

Danny went red, and his eyes drifted to a doorway which led to a little room where there lay, on a small table, a dented Fenton Thermos.

"Fenton doesn't cheat," Dash said defensively. "He gets good grades because he's invested in his schoolwork. What else can distract him from his lack of ghost powers?"

"This one," Clockwork said, smiling. He again became a small child. "This one you've brought. How interesting."

"How interesting, what?" Danny asked, raising a brow.

"He's going to play a big role in your parade," Clockwork said, winking. "Whether or not you fix this."

"Dash is?" Danny frowned. "That sounds like the nightmare I had last week. But… have you made a decision?"

"I've decided to help you one more time," Clockwork said. "Because I like you." He transformed into an old man. "And because I don't like this Wardback character. He is an ancient ghost with immense power, like me. Unlike me, his mind has remained that of a child, and so he still does not understand how to use his power wisely. And I assume that if I did not intervene, the Observants would task me with fixing it anyway." His smile drooped a little as he turned back into a child. "They like to cheat, too."

"Thank you, Clockwork," Danny said. "I already know how I'm going to do this. Can you direct me back to the first time you met Wardback?"

Clockwork nodded and smiled as he became an old man with a genuinely warm smile. He handed them two medallions. "Feel free to go whenever you'd like."

Danny laughed at the subtle pun. "Come on, Dash," he said. Dash picked him up once again as they both put on the medallions and then turned to fly into the portal that was emerging behind them.

When they came out on the other side, they were in Clockwork's lair again, but something was different—the stones were uniformly colored, instead of some of them being discolored. Clockwork was not in his time room, but they heard his voice downstairs.

"You're the centerpiece of a very interesting twist in the events of the world."

"I am? Me?" The voice sounded much younger, but Danny could still tell that it was Wardback's.

"Yes. And that is why I have been expecting you. You may come up to see my wares, if you so please," Clockwork said.

"Wow. Thank you!"

Danny stood with the Boooomerang at the ready, and kept an eye on where the stairs ended. He heard a few steps and then silence, as if Wardback had momentarily forgotten how to fly, as happened sometimes to Danny when he first got his powers.

"Ah, hello, gentlemen," Clockwork said as he floated into the room in the form of an adult man. "Did you have a nice time on your trip?"

"Who're you talking to, Clockwork?" said Wardback as he thrashed his way through the air into the room.

"If you're the master of backwards, you should have seen this coming thousands of years back!" Danny growled, and whipped the Boooomerang at Wardback's chest.

It struck Wardback moderately hard, and he rubbed the spot of impact. "Ow—You attacked me!" he said, sounding genuinely hurt. "You meanies!" He picked up the Boooomerang, and chucked it back at Danny, who simply smiled.

The Boooomerang halted in midair, and flew back at Wardback. He pointed a hand at it, and it flew backwards again, but turned around again and chased him. Wardback yelped and flew out the clock face window, which opened for him. He fell for a moment until he struggled his way back into flight and zoomed away from the device that was tracking him. Just about when he had almost disappeared, he let out a cry and swiped the air in front of him. Danny could faintly see a portal burst into existence, which Wardback passed through just as it closed. The Boooomerang changed trajectory and flew in circles for a few moments before wandering aimlessly off to the side in a randomly winding path.

"Well, we got his ecto-signature locked," Dash said, flying out the window to watch the Boooomerang go. "But how do we get it back now?"

"We don't," Danny said. "We return to our own time. And we let the Boooomerang float around in the Ghost Zone for the thousands of years that it takes for Wardback to come back to the Ghost Zone for the first time… When he tries to escape from us!"

"Wow!" Dash said. "You ARE a genius, Fenton! That's crazy!"

"Well… I got the idea from a real genius," Danny said, remembering the note that Jazz had attached to the Boooomerang in the epidemic with his evil self. "Come on, let's go back to the present so we can track the stupidly named thing." He took off Dash's medallion with one hand and his with the other; they returned to the present time just outside of Clockwork's lair again.

Dash returned the medallions quickly while Danny activated the device that indicated the direction of the tracker, which was inside the Boooomerang. He pumped his fist as a grid showed up with a clear marking as to where the device was—and it appeared to be moving quickly in a straight line.

"All right!" Danny said. "Follow my lead. Go back towards the direction that we came from."

"That's bad grammar, Fenton," Dash said. "You taught me that yesterday. It's supposed to be 'the direction from which we came.'"

Danny groaned. "Well, whatever direction it is grammar-wise, just go that way!"

"Can do, buddy," Dash grinned, giving a thumbs-up.

"This is so weird."

"What?"

"I said, go!"

"Right-o!" Dash called, and sped off into the distance.

"Nudge your direction a little to the right. No—to the _right_, Dash!"

"How close are we?" Dash yelled.

"WHAT?"

Wardback's violent shout came from in front of them as he skidded to a stop in midair, panting heavily. "I left you behind without a trace just fifteen minutes ago!"

The Boooomerang smacked into the back of his head. He snarled and spun around, smacking the machine away; it once again activated and returned to him again. He held out a hand to deflect it and sent it spiraling far backwards, but it returned again. "And how has this thing found me? What is this foul device you've sent upon me?"

"You'd just get angrier if you knew how hilarious its name was," Danny said, watching him deflect it again.

"Stop this thing!" he roared. "Or I shall—"

"Or you shall what?" Danny said as Wardback continued to deflect the machine. "I've been paying attention. I've watched you use your powers. You're still concentrating hard on keeping this backwards world intact. You're still channeling a ton of your strength into it, aren't you?"

Wardback said nothing but huffed angrily through his nose with a hand behind him, keeping the Boooomerang at bay.

"You can't use too much of your power at once, or you'll lose control of the backwards world," Danny said. "Maybe even short yourself out for a while. So while you're keeping this backwards timeline alive, you're much less of a threat. You fled to the Ghost Zone to recover from that fight. But you found yourself chased by a tracking device that I sent to hunt you thousands of years ago, with Clockwork's help!"

"Cheater," Wardback grumbled, breathing deeply.

"Now there's nowhere you can rest," Danny said. Strictly speaking, that wasn't true—if Wardback allowed the Boooomerang to hit him, it would stop chasing him; and if he fled to the human world, eventually the Boooomerang would run out of power. But he saw no reason to disclose this information. "There's nowhere you can go where that thing won't find you—and I can track it." He held up the tracking device in his hand. "So change everything back to the way it was, or else."

"Or else what?" Wardback sneered. "I've got enough power to run from _you_. And to keep this thing at bay. I can keep it up. Wardback surrenders to no one, and he never turns back."

"I was planning on you saying that," Danny said. "Now, Dash."

Dash picked up Danny and chucked him at Wardback. Wardback deflected Danny backwards, but the distraction caused the Boooomerang to strike Wardback once again. That was all the diversion Danny needed for Dash to throw him again, this time flying right up to Wardback; Danny hooked the Specter Deflector around Wardback's waist.

A shock that looked quite painful blasted through Wardback's body, and he let out a scream. As if their surroundings were made of glass, the world around them shattered and fell sparkling to the ground, fading away. What remained looked exactly like before in the Ghost Zone at least, but Danny had a feeling that the human world had gone back to the way it was supposed to be. Dash was gone, but there was only one way to be absolutely sure.

Danny's fist curled as the familiar white disk appeared at his waist and spread across his body. He was Danny Phantom once again.

The Specter Deflector had disappeared—after all, it was the version from the backwards universe. So had the Boooomerang. Danny floated in front of the shaking and fuming young ghost.

"You're going to leave me alone now," Danny said. "I promise, I never organized an attack on you. I'm disappointed that we didn't get to be friends."

"Friends?" Wardback laughed. "What do I need friends for? Friends come and go. I see them go all the time. Only humans have that strange kind of emotional connection, but unfortunately humans do not last forever." He looked up at Danny, who was shocked to see that Wardback was actually softly smiling, despite the pain he must be in. "I didn't intend it to be a challenge, I intended it to be a punishment. But in the end, this challenge gave me the most exciting time I've seen in all my thousands of years." He rose up until he was level with Danny again, folded one leg over the other, and floated backwards into the Ghost Zone once again. "Good luck moving forwards, Halfa."

Danny nodded. "Goodbye." He turned around and flew back out the Fenton portal, phased through the ceiling, and landed in class just in time for second period to start.

Sam put a hand over her heart when she saw Danny walk up to his locker. "Oh, thank God, Danny," she said. "We were seriously freaked out about you!"

"We thought Wardback had done something to ya," Tucker said. "Where were you?"

"Um… I overslept," Danny said. "Long night last night talking with Wardback."

"Find out anything interesting?" Sam asked.

"I reinforced that not all ghosts are evil," Danny said, smiling. "Some are just misunderstood."

A few seconds later, as Danny was putting things in his locker, he suddenly found himself jammed in his locker with the books he was extracting. A hand slammed the locker door behind him, and Dash yelled, "You're late for your daily nerd-whaling, Fentardy!"

"That's back to normal, too," Danny sighed inside his locker.

-THE END-


	2. Episode 53: Blood Pressure

EPISODE 53—BLOOD PRESSURE

Danny's powers had grown to the point where he felt that it was safe to go into the Ghost Zone by himself. He just stayed away from Skulker's lair and Walker's prison. And besides, Sam and Tucker were kind of with him—they were watching the view from his camera and communicating with him through the headphones.

He'd flown past the Ghost King's castle almost ten minutes ago, venturing far into the unknown parts. He'd never been anywhere near this far before, and the danger was thrilling him as much as it was making his hair stand on end. This far from anyone that could help him, he felt really alive—ironic, really, as he was a ghost in a world of ghosts.

"Danny?" Sam's voice betrayed the concern she was trying to cover up. "Are you sure it's a good idea to go this far?"

"Oh, I'm sure there's nothing too dangerous," Danny said. "If I sense danger, though, I promise I'll just shoot back in a flash as fast as I can."

"That's only if you see it coming," Sam pointed out. "We don't know how many ghosts are out there, and what powers they have."

"But Frostbite's been here with the Infi-map," Danny reminded her. "He said he'd been to the Zoan Wall. That's where I'm headed now. And he said few ghosts have ever ventured past those bounds for a crazy long time."

He floated slower, approaching the large iron wall that stretched in every direction farther than the eye could see. He was right at the base of the wall, where the Ghost Zone stretched no further downwards. Usually, there were graveyards and zombified skeletons that chased him when he touched down. Here, there were none.

"But what if there's a _reason_ nobody goes that way?" Sam insisted.

"Nobody goes here because it's near impossible to get past," Danny said.

"FOR A REASON!"

"Frostbite found a way in using the natural portals in the Ghost Zone," Danny argued. "He crossed into the human world, and then crossed back into the Ghost Zone somewhere on the other side of this wall. And he said it was unpopulated except for a few ghosts with no powers." He pressed a hand against the wall; it resisted his intangibility.

"Danny, I'm really worried about the thought you're putting into this."

"Sam, relax, will you?" Danny said. "I can handle anything. And besides, if a ghost tries to trap me anywhere, they don't know that I can do _this!_"

The familiar disk appeared in his body and spread up and down, turning him back into a human; and as they all knew, humans were the ghosts of the Ghost Zone. He kicked his legs, and he spun slowly through the void until he passed right through the wall. "Ha!" Danny said. "Bet they didn't see THAT coming when they designed the wall!" Then he stopped moving and stared at the new landscape.

"Yo, dude," Tucker said, his voice shaking. "After careful consideration, I'm starting to think Sam's right."

The landscape in front of him looked like some crazy desert, black sand streaked with red. There was a breeze—a _breeze,_ in the Ghost Zone. It didn't move the sand, because it seemed to be only blowing several yards above the dunes. The breeze carried hundreds of thousands of little red beads. Maybe millions. Maybe billions. They floated faster than a man could run through the air. The desert began several feet behind the wall and continued farther than he could see, which wasn't very far because the air in the distance was red from the beads that pocked the atmosphere.

Danny turned around to face the wall behind him. "Guys—are you _seeing_ this?" He transformed back into his ghost shape, and flew up and down the wall, examining it. It was filled with gashes and cracks, none of which could be seen from the other side. But the gashes weren't rough; they were smooth, as if eroded like the landscapes on Earth. And so the gashes must have been extremely old.

"This is awesome," Danny breathed. He ran his hand along the gouges, feeling the way they dipped into the steel. Strangely, the gouges were stained with some black crust that came off with his touch. He left a streak in the black crust—it was the only streak he could see on the wall. Nobody appeared to have touched it for eons.

"This is freaky," Tucker said. "What was that red stuff?"

"I don't know," Danny said, "but I don't really feel like touching it. It looks like the best way to get around down here is to fly close to the ground between the red breeze and the sand dunes."

"Okay," Sam said, clearly annoyed, "I KNOW you're not thinking of going further through here."

"I totally am," Danny said. "This is way more interesting than anything I have to go back to there!"

"It's also way more _lethal_."

"I've made up my mind, Sam," he said, and he floated slowly under the breeze and over the dunes, trekking through the strange land.

"This is freaking _me_ out," Tucker said. "And I eat our cafeteria food. Nothing should freak _me_ out!"

"You two are such nervous Nellies," Danny said. "I'll be totally fine."

He looked up at the small red bubbles floating above him, and put a hand on his chin in wonder as he continued to float several feet above the sands. "I wonder…" he said, and held up a hand. A wave of icy cold flowed out of his hand and rippled into the pulsing red cloud above him; the closest bubbles froze solid, fell to the ground and shattered, turning black almost instantly and adding to the sand.

"I think I found out what the sand's made from," Danny said. "The same stuff as the little red bubbles. …Whatever that is. …So I guess I don't know what it's made of."

"Just go back, Danny," Sam pleaded. "This is insanely ominous. I don't know what you're thinking, pressing forward."

Danny sighed. "Well…"

"Please."

Danny huffed. "All right. If it'll make you stop nagging at me. But I want to come back here sometime! Maybe with some backup. I'll—wait!"

"Oh, come on," Sam groaned. "What is it?"

"In the vague distance," Danny said. "I can see a point. Like an object, really, really far away."

"We can't see it on the camera yet," Tucker said. "Are you sure you see something?"

"Positive," Danny said. "I'm going to go check it out!"

"Danny!"

"Sam!" Danny belted back. "I want to see what this is. When was the last time that anything I did caused permanent damage to anyone?"

"Never," Sam said. "Let's keep that record."

"I'm almost there," Danny said. "I'm going." He sped onward, picking up more and more speed while avoiding the small hills that occurred in the dunes. He rose up in the air until he was a couple feet away from the bubbles and stopped rising, so that he was above the peaks of all the sand dunes and could simply jet forward at top speed.

Even at top speed, it took him close to five minutes to finally be able to _see_ what it was he'd spotted in the distance. It was an enormous black castle, and within another minute, he could see that it dwarfed any building he'd ever seen or heard of from the world from which he came.

"And how many times has breaking into a castle gotten you anywhere good?" Sam said.

"I'm thinking about turning off the headset if you keep badgering me about this," Danny said. Then, as he finally approached the door, he turned into a human and phased through it without hesitation.

Instantly, he regretted not listening to Sam. There were countless skeletons strewn awkwardly about the palace, and in the center of the room he'd entered was a vertical, crystal sarcophagus, the size of a small house, almost transparent but not quite, like the end stages of a butterfly's cocoon.

"Skeletons everywhere?" Sam said. "Oh, yeah, nothing dangerous could possibly live here."

"Clockwork has… skulls in his lair," Danny whispered, groping for arguments.

"He doesn't have them as carpeting!" Sam shouted.

Danny heard the skeletons rattling before he heard the source: a low rumbling that made dust fall from the castle walls around him. That wasn't good. In every movie he'd ever seen, it was _not_ a good sign when earthquakes and raining dust were combined.

He looked closer at the sarcophagus, and was beyond alarmed to discover that it was opening. He turned to phase back through the door he'd come through, when it opened in front of his face.

There was a creaking sound, and Danny's head turned as the sarcophagus door blasted off, passed through him, and disappeared into the swarm of red beads—they were now blasting by at a far more frantic pace than before.

He tried to go back out, but he couldn't move his arms or legs. He was twisted into a standing position by some strange force that was controlling him, and he turned to directly face the creature that was now emerging not from the sarcophagus, but from a void inside of it.

It was a pale-skinned woman with long black hair that fell past the fingertips on the thin, bony arms that dangled loosely in front of her; she was hunched over, which revealed long bat wings extending behind her back, still emerging from the sarcophagus. She wore some kind of a cloak with shoulder extensions like spider legs; she also donned jet-black pants and shoes which blended into her black cloak, making it look like she had no lower half to her body. Her nails were long and red, and her stature was gaunt and menacing. And she was ten times his size.

"Young boy," said a dangerous yet silky voice. "You have freed me from my prison. What business have you here in my home?"

"P-Prison?" Danny stammered, only barely able to move his mouth. "Why were you in a prison…?" He dreaded the answer.

"Oh, like the ghosts cared about _humans,_" she spat. "I suppose they decided that they'd have nothing to terrorize if I sucked the life out of every animal on the planet."

Danny's throat tightened—that was him. Every muscle in his body tightened—that was not him.

"I am called Hemozoa," she purred. "I control your body because you are a sack filled with life fluid, which I feed on to grow powerful. I cannot thank you enough for freeing me, for the only thing that could awaken me from my enchanted slumber was the presence of living… pumping… blood." She licked her lips and sighed. "Now stay still while I puncture your arteries and bathe in the flow to rejuvenate my power."

He knew of no other ghost who had directly threatened his life like that. What had he just done, releasing this thing? …But she was walled in and couldn't escape to wreak havoc elsewhere. The only reason he could get in was because he was part human…

But she'd just revealed that she could only control him when he was human filled with life! He quickly concentrated and the band of light spread across his waist yet again, turning him into his ghostly alter-ego; immediately, her hold on him was broken, and he could fly freely again.

"What?" she shouted; she had been advancing on him, but she stopped abruptly with an intense look of rage when Danny transformed.

Danny blasted an ectoplasmic energy ray, which shot directly into her face. She toppled over with an enormous crash due to her size, pulverizing the skeletons below her. She looked up and growled, but she appeared to still be powerless, having just been released from her prison for the first time in who knew how long, and she did not defend when Danny struck next.

He shot an intense ray of freezing-cold energy—he could tell it was the most powerful blast he'd used yet—and it struck Hemozoa in the chest. She cried aloud as she spiraled across the room with the energy and struck the opposing wall, and was instantly encased in ice. Danny delivered one more blast of energy in the form of an exploding ecto-bomb, and the ice shattered.

She fell onto the ground; her pale skin turned ash-gray. She struggled to lift herself with wildly shaking arms, staring at the ground, but failed and struck the floor hard.

"Danny!" came a shout from Sam that startled Danny violently; he'd forgotten they were watching. He'd been so focused on Hemozoa, and they'd stayed quiet to let him stay focused.

"Sam, you scared me half to death," Danny gasped.

"And he's only half alive to begin with," Tucker quipped.

"Wrong time, Tucker."

"Come on! I've been waiting weeks for him to say that line!"

"Shut up, Tucker. Danny, you have to try to shove her back into that coffin. What if she breaks loose?"

"You're right, I think," Danny said, but he didn't have time to react, because something was happening.

Hemozoa shriveled up as if fast-forwarded in the sun, and then she broke apart, her skin turning to ash and her immense bones clattering against the floor with the rest.

"I think my work here is done," Danny said, gaping.

"I'd shove the bones in, just to make sure," Sam maintained.

"I'll do that," Danny said, "but indirectly. I'm not touching those bones." He flew to the other side of the bones and shot energy blasts at them which launched them into the air; they landed in front of the sarcophagus. He then moved to the other side and shot more energy blasts, knocking them into the sarcophagus. He slammed the door shut, and there was another tremor; this spoke to Danny that the seal was back on the sarcophagus. The doors began to close extremely slowly.

"Okay," Danny said. "That was close." He turned around and flew out relatively slowly, keeping his head turned to watch the sarcophagus. But he didn't notice that he was flying too far upwards, and little drops hitting his head told him he'd just flown into the red bubbles that were floating above the dune.

He dropped down and felt the side of his head; it was pretty wet. He brought his hand away, and saw that the bubbles were dripping down his hand, staining his outfit red. There was a metallic smell to his hand, and he instantly guessed what the red bubbles were made out of.

"That's… nasty," Tucker said, understanding as well.

"As a Goth, I try not to show emotions," Sam stated, "but I have to admit, I'd be just delighted if you got out of there as quickly as possible."

"I totally agree with you this time," Danny said. "I'm heading out." He flew back to the wall; once there, he turned human briefly and phased through in about a second, and he turned back into a ghost immediately. He was a little paranoid still from the encounter. And he was still covered in blood, even when he changed back to a human. Even when he turned intangible, it wouldn't run off. He wondered how he'd explain to his parents how his hair and clothes came to be stained all over with blood.

He passed through the Fenton Portal and touched down on the ground, turning back into a human. Tucker and Sam looked at him, grimacing.

"Okay, so that was a little ill-advised," Danny admitted, shaking a little bit. "I'll listen to you from now on, Sam."

"Where'd the blood on your clothes go?" asked Tucker.

Danny looked down. "That's weird," he said. "It didn't come off the last time I transformed." He turned back into his ghost form, and the blood was still gone. "Well, I'm not going to complain about that. Saves me the trouble of trying to sneak my bloody clothes past my parents."

"You have a bit of an advantage there," Tucker said. "You can turn invisible."

"I was afraid for a while that it would never come off," Danny said. "It didn't come off when I turned intangible."

"Passing back through the portal!" Tucker said. "That's what got it off."

"Oh, yeah," Danny said. "It was on me until just that moment, I'm certain."

"Danny!" came a call from upstairs; it was his father.

"Oh, wow," Danny frowned. "They're back early."

His mother and father bounded down the stairs. "Your father got kicked out of the square dance for eating all the fudge," Maddie said in her normal "Oh, Jack" voice. "So we're back a little earlier than expected."

"Can't keep myself away from the fudge," Jack said. "Ah, well. So, Danny! Have you seen the new gadgets?"

"No," Danny said, grimacing. This usually meant that he was going to be in pain at some point when the "gadgets" turned on him, and then hide it from his parents.

"I invented these yesterday!" Jack said, holding up a pair of thick, wire-strewn glasses. "I call them the Spooktacles!"

Jazz, who had just come downstairs, smacked a palm on her face at the terrible name her father had given the device.

"I just put them on over my eyes," Jack said, holding it up, "and it highlights the figure of a ghost, whether or not it's invisible, or even if it's overshadowing someone!"

He was about to put them on, and Danny suddenly panicked—if his father looked at him…

Jazz thought the same thing, too, and she shouted, "Dad! I'm pretty sure I just saw a ghost fly through our house! It went out the window and raced down the street!"

"I'll get it!" Jack shouted and charged up the stairs at a speed Danny hadn't thought possible for his sizeable father. He jammed the glasses on as he sprinted.

Maddie smiled and showed Danny another device. "See this one?" she said. "This one, I made. Well… Technically, I finish all your father's inventions to make them work, so they're all kind of my inventions. But don't tell him I said that." She smiled wider. "Here's the Spirit Spear!" She held up a long, thin metal rod. "This handy device is for if the ghosts get up close and personal instead of flying around. You jab it right through 'em—" she gave a thrust dangerously close to Danny, who tensed momentarily— "and it absorbs their ecto-energy and makes 'em weaker with every hit. And the best part is, it stores that energy for its batteries!"

"What does it need batteries for?" Danny asked, dreading the answer a little bit.

"Because it can also do this," Maddie said. She held the rod up vertical, and thrust it into the ground. Out of the top, a familiar green energy blasted into the air about ten feet up and then flowed downward around like the surface of a sphere. "Portable ghost shield. Great if you're surrounded. And if you twist the top before you take it out, it'll send extra energy out to keep the ghost shield intact for almost a full minute after you take it out! Then you can stab all the ghosts through the ghost shield and plop it back in the ground."

"Wow, Mom," Danny said, admiring the technology. "That's really neat!"

"Well, thank you, Danny!" She basked in pride for a moment. "I've been working on that one for a while. It's nice to know it turned out right." She twisted the top and pulled it out of the floor; the ghost shield remained for a while. "Come on, everyone, let's go upstairs and see what we can find to eat." She stepped out of the ghost shield.

Danny, Sam, and Tucker stayed in place.

"Well, come on, kids," Maddie said, staring back with her hands on her hips.

"It's, um… really pretty in here, inside the ghost shield where no ghosts can get out," Danny said. "I mean, in. I think we'll stay for another fifty seconds or so."

"Well, all right," Maddie said. "I'll go check what we can have for dinner. Come up when you're done admiring the Spirit Spear. Oh, and did I mention it's retractable?"

As she disappeared up the stairs, Danny huffed. "I hate it when they have new inventions."

"Hey, look on the bright side," Tucker said. "Those things might come in handy someday."

"Yeah," Sam said. "Unattractive as those Spooktacles are, they might come in handy someday if you need to find a ghost that's hiding."

"I guess so," Danny said. "Or, my dad could bust in whilst wearing them at any time and could discover I'm a ghost."

There was a brief silence.

"We could…" Sam sighed. "I'd hate to do this for any other reason, but we could steal them and then blame a ghost."

"I think we'll have to," Danny groaned. "I can't risk my dad just throwing them on while I'm around. He'll tear me apart for impersonating his son before he finds out that I AM his son."

The ghost shield flickered and slowly dissolved from the top. The three teens stepped out and walked up the stairs to the kitchen.

They didn't notice the movement in the corner of the lab. A small red puddle oozed along the floor until it encountered a small mouse skittering along the floor. It engulfed the mouse, which writhed around for a moment and then stopped suddenly. The red mass grew and then slithered away. The mouse wandered off feebly for a while and then collapsed.

* * *

><p>Jack Fenton came back about an hour later from his run across town looking for the ghost, wearing the extremely unsightly glasses and embarrassing Danny more than usual. He looked upset, but he was even more upset when he discovered he'd missed dinner. He sighed and took the glasses off, placing them on the table. "I'm wondering if these work at all," Jack mumbled, sitting at the table with more force than usual. "I can't invent anything."<p>

"Oh, honey, that's not true," Maddie said.

Jack didn't notice the invisible hand pop from under the table, grab the Spooktacles, and pull them under.

"I might as well throw these—" Jack grabbed at empty air. "Where did they go?"

"GHOST!" Maddie yelled, dropping down and aiming a wrist ray under the table; there was nothing there.

"Ha!" Jack yelled. "A ghost wouldn't have stolen that thing unless it worked!"

Danny shoved the Spooktacles under the lab floor and pulled his hand out, fusing the Spooktacles inside the ground. He flew back up and walked into the kitchen as his father was bragging.

"I'll bet you anything it was that Danny Phantom kid," Jack said. "He's probably just jealous of my genius!"

"Um, actually, Dad," Danny said, trying to save his reputation a little, "I saw the ghost that did it. It was the, um, Glasses Ghost, and he wanted to add your brilliant device to his collection."

"The Glasses Ghost?" Jack said. "Why wasn't he interested in the windows? That's a lot more glass. Did you see where he went?"

"No, he turned invisible," Danny said.

"Cheating ghost scum. Well, keep an eye out for those glasses, son!"

"Will do, Dad."

He went back, climbed the stairs and approached his room—but his ghost sense went off and he felt the cold feeling run down his body. "What…?" Danny said. "Is there really a Glasses Ghost here or something?"

He looked around but didn't see anything, so he had to be cautious. He peeked into Jazz's room, and his own, then ran down the stairs again.

"Something wrong, Danny?" Maddie asked, noting his quick ascent and descent.

"Uh," Danny said. He decided to be honest. "Looking for a ghost."

"Good job, Danny," she replied. "You're your parents' son!"

"Thanks," Danny said, and ran down to the lab again.

His eyes scanned the lab and didn't detect anything significant until something discolored managed to catch in his peripheral vision. He approached it and bent down—it was a dead mouse. "I thought we got rid of the mice," he said.

A pulsing red blob shot from a corner in the lab. If Danny hadn't forced himself into a hardcore training regimen, he might not have had the reflexes to defend against it. But he'd been focusing hard on improving his reaction time, and it was paying off nicely. He threw up a shield of ecto-energy (slightly more difficult when he was a human, but he managed it) and his attacker splattered against the shield. The red ooze started to run around the shield and towards the side.

"Whoa!" Danny yelled. "No touchie!" He jumped back far into the air and transformed into his ghost half. "We don't even know each others' names yet!"

But strangely, as soon as he turned into a ghost, the red blob fell back to the ground and oozed around the lab floor blindly. It ran along the wall for a while.

"What the…" Danny muttered. "This is freaky. And… is that the blood that was on my outfit before?"

The blood puddle slid over to the stairs and slowly climbed them. Danny gasped—his family was up there, and they couldn't hide the blood in their bodies by turning into ghosts. He had to stop the puddle… He grabbed the Fenton Thermos, and decided to take the Spirit Spear, too, in case the puddle was too evasive for the Thermos to capture.

He changed back and ran up the stairs. "Mom! Dad! Jazz! Look out!"

"Danny? What is it? Why do you have the—JAZZ!"

The red puddle leaped at Jazz, but when it made contact, it sizzled with electricity and flew off into a corner… Jazz was wearing a Specter Deflector.

"That was lucky," Jack said, a brow twisted.

"I saw Danny running around looking for ghosts," Jazz said, winking at Danny, "and I figured, why not, I'll take the precaution."

"Good girl," Maddie said, then activated her wrist ray again, swiveling to check around the room.

"Here," Danny said, handing Jazz the Fenton Thermos. "Use if you get a good shot, but, you know… not if I'm anywhere near it."

"I've got it," Jazz said, patting the thermos. "Do what you need to do."

Danny kept a wary eye out. The next attack came from the same spot, and he was totally ready for it. He thrust the Spirit Spear into the flying puddle as it launched towards him, and the spearhead glowed green as it sucked the energy out of the blob.

The blob jettisoned backwards into the wall, knocking off a picture, and sank to the floor. It rippled and pulsed until it formed a vague human shape, and then the first layer peeled off, revealing the miniature form of Hemozoa.

It was exactly as Danny had seen her in the Ghost Zone, but only six inches tall. She stared at Danny curiously, making the connection instantly that he was the one she had seen in the Ghost Zone. But he had defeated her and sealed her bones in the Ghost Zone! Unless… unless all the blood floating outside the castle was _hers_. That must have been the explanation—when he'd gotten her blood on him, he'd carried it out, and she was slowly regenerating by taking the blood from others, starting with that mouse in the lab. And she almost got Jazz. She would have sucked the blood out of his sister like that mouse—he had to stop her before she got anyone else.

Jazz was quicker to act this time. While Danny was piecing together the situation, she leapt forward and activated the thermos. A beam of blue light shot out of the end, but Hemozoa bounded upwards and slid through the ventilation. As she left, Danny thought he heard a pained grunt, as if it was taking a lot of effort from her to perform the simplest of actions. The Specter Deflector and the Spirit Spear must have weakened her a lot.

_Darn it!_ Danny thought. _She could be going anywhere. How am I going to find… Wait! The Spooktacles!_

He ran back down to the lab, ignoring his mother's concerned shouts that he was going alone. He passed a hand through the tile that he'd phased through before, and grabbed the mechanical glasses. He transformed into Danny Phantom and slipped them on, noticing the eerie blue glow that was surrounding his arms when he looked at them through the glasses. He grabbed another thermos, jumped through the ceiling of each floor and then popped out through the roof.

He scanned the general area and discovered a trace of red through his glasses disappearing down the street. He followed it, but lost the sight almost instantly.

"This isn't good," Danny murmured.

"It's the Ghost Kid!"

The Guys in White, unfortunately, just happened to be passing underneath. "He's donned some sort of visual enhancement device!" one of them shouted.

"But I bet he didn't see this one coming!" the other one called, and pulled out a large mechanism that looked like a machine gun. It fired an array of energy shots which Danny only narrowly avoided by halting his progress and simply falling. He passed through the ground to avoid his attackers as they launched jetpacks and flew after him.

He ended up in the town sewer system, floating above an underground river. Some workers in the tunnel caught sight of him and ran, waving their arms around and dropping their flashlights. Danny sighed. What did he have to do to convince these people that he wasn't something to be scared of? …Though maybe the strange glasses on his face added to the fright factor in this dark tunnel.

He looked around before deciding that it was unlikely that Hemozoa had come in here. He flew for a while under the ground in the direction he thought she had gone, and then he rose up again through the ground. He didn't see any ghost activity in the vicinity, other than himself, and he flew around the town for a while, invisible. He flew down every street in the general area, and when he was completely exhausted, and night had fallen, he returned to his house begrudgingly. He couldn't just leave Hemozoa out there where she might attack anyone at any time… He'd have to go out again tonight. But he needed a moment's rest before he did so, and he also needed to make his parents think he was in bed.

When he phased back into the house, he saw that the ghost defenses were on the ready, probably due to the attack from before. A blast of energy shot from one of the shelves—he ducked it and turned human again so that it would no longer fire at him.

Jazz stuck her head out from her door at the noise and saw Danny with the Spooktacles. She smiled. "Mom and Dad were looking for you," she said. "They wanted you to wear a Specter Deflector like the rest of us. Which is bad, of course, because that would hurt you and they'd probably find out. So I snuck into the storage, stole one, and disabled it. Here. They'll never know!" She tossed him a Specter Deflector, which he caught without pain.

"Hey," Danny said, taking the glasses off. "Thanks! That was really smart!"

"I do what I can to help," Jazz said, and pulled her head back into her room.

Danny put the Specter Deflector on and locked it just as his mother was coming around the corner. "Danny!" she said. "Where have you been? I was worried that something had gotten you. Jazz told me you went to Tucker's house?"

"That's… right," Danny said. "I wanted to make sure he and Sam were okay."

"That's sweet of you, but tell me first next time, okay?"

"I told Jazz to tell you 'cause I was in a hurry, but next time, I will."

"Oh, good." His mother tousled his hair and strode down the hall.

Danny sighed and took a deep breath. "I think I'm going to bed now. I'll keep the Specter Deflector on."

"Good boy," his mother said. "Are you sure about bed? It's only a little past 9."

"I'm sure," Danny said. He went into his room and locked the door, then sat on the bed and collected his thoughts.

_Okay. Hemozoa was heading in the same direction as the museum when I saw it the first time. In that direction is also… the package store… Marley's Home Appliance Market… and, if you go past the museum and keep going for a while, the Lincoln Farm. Where would she be going?_

After several minutes of pondering what Hemozoa could be doing in that direction, he still had no idea where she could be heading, and decided that there was no strategic location. He had to just go out and search further. He donned the Spooktacles and grabbed a Fenton Thermos and the Spirit Spear, then jumped out his window, transformed again, and flew off, still tired and sore from his last long flight.

As he flew past the home appliance market, he saw a tinge of green inside the window. He stopped his flight for a moment and ducked down to look through the window, and saw a ghost sifting through the refrigerator aisle.

Danny raised an eyebrow, and then passed inside with his Fenton Thermos at the ready. He cleared his throat, and the ghost looked over with a curious face at him, shooting up an eyebrow when he saw the glasses.

This new ghost had a forest green jacket over a gray shirt and sunglasses on his forehead, above his eyes. His skin was a dark green and he had shifty, dark eyes. His pockets were bulging all over.

"Can I help you?" the ghost asked.

"Are you the refrigerator ghost or something?" Danny asked.

"I am Filch," he replied. "Ghost of theft."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Then I guess you're up to no good."

"Got that right," Filch said. "Who're you?"

"I'm Danny Phantom," Danny said. "Ghost of righteousness."

"Then I guess you're up to good," Filch said.

Danny aimed the Thermos at him and fired it. Filch jumped out of the way but his jacket got caught in the suction effect, and he freed his arms from it as he flew out the roof. Danny passed through, too, and caught Filch in his second blast from the thermos, and the thieving ghost disappeared, yelling, into the container as Danny slapped the top on. "Got that right." He frowned. "What was that about? I've never seen him before, and that was way too easy." He had to keep an eye out for Filch in the future. As for now, he needed to continue looking for Hemozoa. But it was nice to get one ghost out of the way quick. One thing was for sure: These Spooktacles may have been his dad's most useful invention for him yet, apart from, of course, the thermos that he'd just used.

He flew up and out of the home appliance market. Looking around, he still saw nothing; he needed to continue his patrols.

After another full minute of scanning the general area, he flew past an ambulance with its lights flashing violently. Another one followed shortly afterwards. He wondered what had happened, and where, when he suddenly made a connection in his mind.

_The hospital. The hospital! It's in roughly this direction! They probably have blood supplies somewhere; it'd be perfect bait for Hemozoa! Or maybe she's already there…_

He flew as fast as he could towards the hospital. It only took him about a minute—it was fairly close—but he skidded to a stop when he approached.

People were running away from the hospital. Ambulances from all over were picking people up; that's probably why he saw the two with flashing lights before. And inside, he saw a pulsing aura of red. When he took off the Spooktacles, he could still see it, but it was much fainter.

He flew in with his thermos at the ready. He passed through several walls and looked to each side, flying towards wherever the light seemed the strongest. Eventually he passed through a wall and wound up inside a very cold storage facility, where Hemozoa was standing, twenty feet tall already, and still visibly growing.

"Foolish boy," she said. "You shouldn't have come. You should flee now, into the Ghost Zone. And take your ridiculous face contraption with you. This is my domain now."

"People are going to die if you don't stop draining their supplies!" Danny shouted before he could stop himself. He heated up a little in embarrassment; why would a ghost that had tried to kill him care about human lives?

Hemozoa laughed. "You poor, idiotic child. Those people are leaving for other hospitals because I scared them away. They will survive. And you can stop worrying about your friends from town. They will all survive, too."

Danny's eyes narrowed. He didn't trust this ghost. He readied the Fenton Thermos behind his back.

"No, they all must survive," Hemozoa said silkily. "I will keep them alive so that I may have an endless supply of blood on which to feed. I will take a little bit from everyone every day."

"That's sickening," Danny said.

"Even now, I grow," she said, and Danny realized that he had to capture her now before she got too powerful. He whipped the Fenton Thermos out and uncapped it, but a pressurized blast of red fluid hit him from the side and he dropped it. The blood swirled around and slammed into the Fenton Thermos, destroying it. The ghost Filch popped out and soared through the ceiling immediately.

Danny shot super-cooled energy blasts at the blood, freezing it solid, and then fired more energy blasts at Hemozoa. But she was far more powerful than last time. The blood blasted out of boxes all around him and first intercepted his shot, then smashed him against the wall hard. He looked up in time to see a red blast of energy fire from Hemozoa's hand and knock the wind completely out of him. He inadvertently turned back into a human from the impact, and found himself thrust into the air. He felt his blood boiling as she used it to control him for the brief moment before he turned back into a ghost.

If that happened again, she would probably react faster and end his life before he could turn back. He'd never been so frightened while facing a foe. He'd been threatened with death before—Skulker did that all the time—but this was the first time that he knew that if he slipped up once, his life would be terminated instantly.

He was on the defensive now, putting up a shield of energy that was shattered by Hemozoa's energy rays; he threw up another one but was shot back into the wall anyway. He flew around the room, continuously dodging until he was struck again. He had to use so much concentration on keeping himself as a ghost that he was unprepared for the next strike.

"Let's see how long it takes me to destroy you when I intercept your powers," Hemozoa said, and her next blast of energy was bluish-purple. It hit Danny full-force, and he turned intangible to pass through the wall instead of hitting it. When he passed through, he tumbled along a hallway, and when he came to a stop, his powers shorted out and he turned back into a human. He focused hard, but he couldn't change back, and his heart started thumping like crazy.

"Where are you, my little sack of blood?"

Danny staggered to his feet and sprinted away. A blast from the other side told him that Hemozoa was in hot pursuit. He began sweating hard, especially the part on his leg where the Spirit Spear was pressing—

He grabbed the Spirit Spear and thrust it into the floor of the hallway, and a ghost shield erupted out of the top, enclosing him in a sphere of safety. Hemozoa, now perhaps thirty feet tall, crawled on her hands through the hallway and frowned when she saw the ghost shield around Danny. She closed a hand around it, perhaps intending to crush it, but she was zapped hard when she touched it. She brought her hand back and hissed, and Danny saw her shrink slightly when she was injured.

Danny grimaced as he tried as hard as he could to go ghost again. He didn't know how long of a battery life that device had. But he knew how to recharge it.

He finally reached some sort of threshold as he broke out into a further sweat. Some sort of barrier snapped and he changed back into a ghost. He grabbed the Spirit Spear out of the ground and, as the ghost shield disintegrated, he jabbed it into Hemozoa's arm. She screeched as the spear drained her of her energy, and she swatted Danny away; Danny carried the spear with him.

She shrank further, then snarled and fired more energy at him. When Danny hit the floor again, he passed through it, then came up under where he thought Hemozoa was with the spear pointing upwards. The spear dove into the blood ghost's stomach, and she screamed and batted him off again. Danny knew this was working; she was now perhaps only fifteen feet tall. But her power was still immense, and another blast from her hand was too quick for Danny to block. He span in the air down the hallway until he hit the wall on the opposite end; when he opened his eyes, Hemozoa was gone from sight, even sight from the Spooktacles.

His mom had really done a wonder with the spear. Danny had to remember to compliment her on it again. For now, he visited the storage room again; no sign of Hemozoa. There was no sign of her outside, either.

"There's the ghost that's been terrorizing the hospital!" came a familiar shout from below. "It's that ghost kid, Danny Phantom! And he's got my glasses on! See, I knew it was him!"

"He's got my Spirit Spear, too! How did he get that?"

Danny gasped when he saw his parents below. And his mother had the Fenton Bazooka! _No!_ he thought inwardly as the bazooka powered up and fired. That was the worst possible thing they could have brought! The Fenton Bazooka was a portable ghost portal launcher that could send any ghost straight to the Ghost Zone!

He tried to fly away, but the ghost portal that appeared next to him had too strong a pulling force, and he disappeared into the Ghost Zone. The Spooktacles fell off of him as he disappeared and clattered to the ground.

* * *

><p>He groaned when he popped into the green landscape that was the Ghost Zone. This was horrible. He had to find a way back, <em>fast<em>, before Hemozoa took over his town and maybe the world. But he had no idea where he was!

There were four places or people he could find to get him out. If he found Wulf somehow, that ghost could tear a hole between dimensions. But that was unlikely; Wulf was probably in the human world. So if he found a landmark, he would have to decide which was closer—Vlad's portal, his own portal, or Frostbite with the Infi-map.

He flew in a random direction, looking for anything familiar at all and not finding anything. But finally, after maybe thirty full minutes, he rose over a cavern and saw one familiar landmark: the skull-shaped rock formation carved under the waterfall in the River of Revulsion. If he was remembering correctly, this meant he was closest to Vlad's portal.

Vlad's was probably a good place to go, anyway. If there was anyone who could help him now, it was Vlad—because that billionaire politician could turn into a ghost, too, and was therefore the only person in Amity Park who would consider helping him. Especially if Hemozoa was putting Maddie in danger.

He shot off in the direction he knew Vlad's portal was, passing more familiar landmarks, until he came to a giant football floating in the middle of the Ghost Zone. He shoved it aside, and passed through the portal that was on the other side.

He found himself in Vlad's lab, as he expected. What he did not expect was to stumble upon Vlad in a bathrobe watering flowers with a dainty expression on his face, next to a holographic version of his mother. The latter made him far more uncomfortable, and he almost had an urge to turn around and fly back through the portal. He cleared his throat.

Vlad looked over and gave a startled shout, pouring too much water onto the plant and sponging it off the soil with a towel nearby. He then turned around vehemently and shouted, "What are you doing here? Trespassing in my secret lab, eh?" The holographic Maddie faded.

Danny held up a hand. "Wait! I'm sorry. But I needed to come here. The whole town is in danger!"

Vlad's stormy expression did not fade.

Danny sighed. "Including my mom. The non-holographic version, I mean."

Vlad almost boiled over with rage, but he cooled himself down. "From what, may I inquire?" he asked as calmly as he could manage.

His question was answered immediately by a stampeding sound overhead in his mansion. Vlad's expression darkened, and he rose through the ceiling without transforming into a ghost, and Danny shouted, "Wait! Don't go up there as a human!" and followed.

He passed through the floor into the mansion above and saw an army of little four-legged ghost animals made out of a solid red substance. They were dragging Vlad towards the door.

Vlad transformed into Vlad Plasmius, and let loose an energy burst that incinerated the minions of Hemozoa. He glanced around at the red splotches they left on the floor, and folded his arms as he stared at Danny. "I believe you may have some explaining to do."

Danny wasn't paying any attention to Vlad, though. He was staring outside at the red glowing silhouette of a fifty-foot Hemozoa against the skyline; she was still growing.

"What have you unleashed this time, Daniel?" Vlad huffed as he turned around to look, too. "Or was it your idiot father?"

"Doesn't matter," Danny said. "What matters is how we get rid of her. She's called Hemozoa, and she controls all blood—"

"I _know_ who Hemozoa is," Vlad said. "I've chronicled much of the Ghost Zone already. How do you think I discovered the secrets of the Skeleton Key, or the Infi-map? I know that she is nearly invincible when she has access to this many creatures with blood. She'll be unstoppable by anyone by dawn. And I also know that, for that reason exactly, she was sealed away by the Observants behind the Zoan Wall, which is _completely impenetrable by ghosts._ Perhaps not, though, by half-ghosts."

Danny decided not to approach the subject of how she got out. "Look. Do you know how to beat her or not?"

"She's sent her minions to every house in the town within several miles by now, most likely," Vlad said. "Wherever they sense blood."

"And she'll keep them alive while draining them a little at a time," Danny said. "To increase her power without bounds."

"You've really done it this time," Vlad said. "I suppose we could try to save Maddie, but other than that, there's nothing we can do."

"What?" Danny shouted. "Are you kidding?"

"She's already too powerful for any ghost to beat," Vlad said. "We'll have to wait for the Observant Court to handle it."

"But I was weakening her with this!" Danny said, holding out the Spirit Spear. "I know she can be weakened!"

"She can be weakened?" Vlad asked, raising an eyebrow. "How do you know you were making her less powerful?"

"This device drains energy out of ghosts," Danny said. "My mom invented it."

"Ah, so then it actually works," Vlad mused.

"Anyway," Danny said, teeth grinding, "when I hit her with it, she shrank in size. By a pretty good margin. She seems to shrink whenever she's hurt."

"Well then, that's something," Vlad said. "I suppose…" He nodded. "Did you recognize the plants that I was watering when you arrived?"

Danny nodded. "They were blood blossoms."

"We could have someone eat a large amount of them," Vlad said, "like your friend Tucker did back in 17th century Salem when I used them on you. Or more than one person. The blossom's anti-ghost effect will be running in their bloodstream, and then when Hemozoa drains them, it will weaken her."

"And then I'll sneak up on her with this," Danny said, hitting the spear against his hand.

"Whatever makes you feel like a _hero_," Vlad said, rolling his eyes. "I shall go downstairs and fetch the Blood Blossoms. However, after this, as punishment for your trespassing, I'm going to reveal to the city as its knowledgeable mayor that you were the one responsible for the mess that's occurred, and then I will further proceed to destroy your life afterwards."

"Whatever!" Danny shouted. "You'd probably do that anyway. Come on, we have to hurry!"

* * *

><p>"You want me to eat <em>more<em> vegetables?" Tucker cried out.

"It's necessary, Tucker," Danny said, waving the bag of blossoms. "We've already had Sam and Jazz eat a bunch of them!"

"B-But they eat vegetables all the time!" Tucker sputtered. "I promised myself that time in the 1600's was the only time I would betray my all-meat diet!"

"You eat burger buns," Danny argued. "Now just eat them! It's… necessary to keep the blood ghost from attacking you." He decided not to inform them that they were bait and were eventually going to have some of their blood sucked out. That might have made them a little too nervous. But he felt a little bad for lying.

"Fine," Tucker spat. "But you owe me big time again. You're paying for the next version of Doom when it comes out."

"Okay! Okay!" Danny bellowed. "Eat! Quickly!"

He heard the door bust open downstairs, and winced as he heard the shrieks of Tucker's parents as they opened the door and were grabbed and carried out by the blood minions.

Tucker opened up the bag, shoveled all of the blossoms into his face, and then swallowed, grimacing. He just finished the thirty-blossom helping when the door burst open and he was grabbed by the minions.

"Hey!" Tucker wailed as he struggled and was carried out the door. "You said they wouldn't go after me!"

"She won't kill you, don't worry!" Danny called. "I feel really, really bad for this, and I'll do whatever it takes to make it up to you, but this is what we need to do to win!"

He flew off towards Hemozoa's growing form, now taller than any of the buildings. She continued to lightly pierce the skin of every person carried to her, and absorbed more and more blood. The sight was horrifying.

He waited for Tucker to be carried in. Sam's and Jazz's blood would probably be absorbed at about the same time. He flew as close as he dared and hid behind a building as he watched Hemozoa grow…

Suddenly, she let out her signature bat-like screech, clawing at her face. The oversized veins that ran through her body started to bulge and inflame, and she howled in pain and started to shrink.

This distraction was what Danny needed. He flew up behind her with the Spirit Spear and thrust it so deep into her back that it disappeared completely.

Hemozoa screeched and shrank continuously from the pain, falling to the ground on all fours with a slam, shaking the nearest buildings. She was still eight stories tall, but she was shrinking. As her body contracted and tightened, the Spirit Spear pierced out of her skin again and snapped, part of it tumbling to the ground.

Vlad pulled up in the air alongside Danny and split into four. Not wanting to be outdone, Danny attempted the same trick, and to his surprise, he also split into four copies. He silently pumped a fist in victory.

The eight total ghosts in the air then charged each hand and fired sixteen rays of energy directly into Hemozoa's back. She howled and writhed, shrinking at a growing rate until she was about the size of a normal person. She still looked like she was in pain, but she was maintaining her size as she breathed heavily, keeping her head facing the ground. "Who has done this?" she growled shakily.

Vlad snapped his fingers. As Danny had been going to his friends and sister, giving them the Blood Blossoms to eat, Vlad had trekked to the Ghost Zone and found the Observants. They didn't take kindly to his presence, since he had freed both the Ghost King and Vortex, but they took his word that Hemozoa was loose, and Hemozoa was a far greater threat.

At Vlad's snap, two Observants materialized and held up hands. Their hands glowed, and Hemozoa rose into the air, squirming again.

"Ghost Queen," one of them said, "you have committed severe crimes against the human world for which the punishment is indefinite incarceration."

"In other words," the other said, "once a filthy ghost, always a filthy ghost."

Shards of crystal began materializing in the air around her and slammed into an area just off of her body, encasing her in a crystal coffin that was about the same size as the one that Danny had encountered.

"Young half-ghost," the first one said, staring directly at Danny. "You have made a grave mistake. Admittedly, so have we, apparently, in allowing Clockwork to let you live. But this havoc cannot continue. Next time you step out of line, there shall be no escaping your justice."

"Um… Understood," Danny said, awkwardly bowing in the air.

"And you," the other one said, staring at Vlad. "You have acted most unwisely against the court in the past. Your actions here have caused us to decide against pursuing you, but you are at the same level as this one. Should you step out of line, again, we shall be forced to dispense necessary justice."

Vlad laughed. "If you think you can."

The Observants seemed to be unable to narrow their eyes, but they seemed to be glaring anyway. Then they flew to either end of the coffin, and they both drew whips out. They each cracked the whip twice on either side, and where the whips struck, little green cracks appeared in the air around them. The green realm expanded around the Observants and the coffin, and then disappeared, leaving nothing behind; presumably, the whips had somehow returned them to the Ghost Zone. Danny wondered why no other ghosts had anything like that.

"I look forward to seeing you clean up this mess, Daniel," Vlad said. "Both the publicity mess and, of course, the actual mess." He gestured around to all the shaking people laying around the ground with the rubble from the damaged buildings and cars. "I would wish you good luck, except, I don't wish that. Ta-ta!" He laughed and vanished into the air with a wisp of energy.

Danny noted his mother below readying the Fenton Bazooka, and he shot off into the distance to go back home and pretend he'd been there the whole time.

* * *

><p>When Danny got to school tomorrow, everyone looked neurotic. People were glancing left and right all the time and physically attacking those who tapped them on the shoulder from behind.<p>

Tucker was smiling—that was a good sign. Danny had assumed he'd be furious. He'd already seen Jazz and Sam, who were both a little disappointed in him for not being completely honest, but they'd understood the dire situation and had forgiven him this time.

"Glad to see you're not furious with me," Danny said. "How are things?"

Tucker continued to just smile and held up his PDA with an email he'd received this morning for being on the email list for the Doom computer game. According to the email, the new version of Doom was available for download for $59.99.

Remembering the promise he'd made the night before, Danny's shoulders slumped and he sighed. "Well," he said, "I guess I bloody well deserve it."

-THE END-


	3. Episode 54: Down the Drain

EPISODE 54—DOWN THE DRAIN

It was a normal Sunday afternoon in Amity Park. The world was calm—no ghosts had been around for the entire weekend. Actually, then, the absence of ghosts made it an _abnormal_ afternoon.

Danny walked down the street with Tucker and Sam, having just come out of a movie. They talked and laughed like normal teenagers… unfortunately, they weren't normal teenagers. Hunting ghosts pretty much disqualified you for the Normal Teenager of the Year award.

"This is excellent," Danny said. "I don't know where all the ghosts have gone, but I have to admit, I really don't care."

"It's nice to act essentially normal for a day," Sam agreed. "Now I kind of know what other teenagers do for fun."

"Yesterday," Tucker said, "we visited my cousins for dinner, and one of them asked me what I do for fun. It was funny for a moment until I realized I wasn't answering, just kind of looking at the ceiling and laughing."

"Smooth," Sam said. "I'm sure they didn't suspect you of anything after that."

"They thought I was on a crime spree at nights," Tucker said, "so don't worry, they don't suspect you guys."

They walked down the street for a few minutes, talking. It was wondrous to discover how much they had to say, when there was time to say it, uninterrupted by ghost attacks. Tucker talked about how his father had gotten a promotion, and was now bringing in a lot more to the family income; Sam discussed her most recent victory over her parents' attempts to turn her into a happy pink princess. Her grandmother had backed her up, and together, Granny and Sam defeated the forces of pink frilly sleeves. It was amazing to think that Sam's parents still thought that they could change her fashion taste…

Then they talked music, what new hits were great on the radio, what bands were coming out with new albums, and their favorite Dumpty Humpty hit off the album that just came out last month. They talked sports, and video games, and hit just about every topic that wasn't ghost hunting.

Danny kept expecting his ghost sense to go off at any moment and ruin the record—this was the longest running no-ghost stretch since the early days of his powers. Whatever it was that was keeping them away, he hoped it would keep up. He had a test on Wednesday, and it would be nice if he had both Monday and Tuesday night to study. That was a lot to ask for, and he didn't expect it to happen, really. But it didn't hurt to hope.

They'd even put aside training, to have one ghost-free weekend. Any moment now, it would be ruined by Danny's ghost sense and the appearance of the Box Ghost… or Filch, who had made several appearances in the last few days, until this weekend…

Someone…

* * *

><p>Danny yawned and stretched. He swung his feet over the side of his bed, feeling distinctly refreshed. Ten hours of sleep. <em>Ten hours!<em> A luxury beyond his imagination.

He brushed his teeth and washed his face. He ate breakfast and packed up his things, then took the trip to school. It was…

What was this strange new feeling?

Boredom?

Is this what normal teenagers felt like sometimes? Teenagers without superpowers?

Again, Danny was expecting his ghost sense to go off at any time during school. His first class passed without incident, and then his second. Lunch came and went. And then the final bell rang to end the entirely unremarkable day, and he walked out with Sam and Tucker.

"Wanna hit the arcade?" Tucker said. "We never get to do that!"

"Absolutely!" Danny and Sam shouted concurrently. They all high-fived and then walked down the street that led to the downtown area where the arcade was.

"So how was your day?" Tucker asked.

"Simple," Danny replied. "A quiz and a homework quiz, but they were both cake. You?"

"I had a great gym class," Sam said. "I finally got to spike the volleyball directly into Paulina's head."

Danny cringed. "There's a shortage of perfect skin in this world," he said. "It would be a pity to damage hers."

"Perfect skin is nothing if you have a corrupted, rotten and festering, soulless interior," Sam argued.

"In your opinion, because you share a mutual hatred," Danny said.

"Hey, it's not like I haven't tried to get to know her," Sam said. "I know she's a… Um, Tucker?"

They just noticed that Tucker had stopped on the corner of the entrance to a side street, staring wide-eyed down the other road.

"Tuck?" Danny said. "What is it?"

"Danny," Tucker said, turning. "Your ghost sense didn't go off?"

Danny frowned. "No, I would have felt that. …Why?"

Tucker gestured, and Danny and Sam ran over to see what Tucker had been gawking at; when they reached him and looked down the street, they gawked, too.

It was Ember McLain, the siren ghost he'd dealt with many times before. But something was very, very off.

Her hair was gone—the fire part, anyway. All that was left were her bangs and a small puff in the back. She usually had the typical small glow of a ghost, but that was completely gone, too. She looked extremely tired. She wasn't flying, either—she was limping and dragging her guitar along the ground. When she looked up and saw Danny, she held up a hand, and her mouth twitched while open for a while as if she was going to say something, and then she toppled over and struck the ground face-first.

Danny scratched the back of his neck as he stared down at his foe. "Um… aren't you supposed to look like this _after_ you encounter me?" he asked, and ran forward to look at her.

"Danny, no!" Tucker said. "It's probably a trick!" He grabbed a thermos out of his backpack and got ready with it.

"I don't think so," Danny said. "She looks crazy weak."

He knelt down in front of her and tapped her shoulder. She looked up with unfocused eyes, having difficulty keeping her head up. Danny put a hand under the back of her hair and stared at her. "What… happened?"

"V…" she started to say. Even though she'd only stressed one letter, Danny could tell that her voice sounded damaged, hoarse. "V…"

"Vlad?" Danny asked, growling the name of the first V-villain he could think.

Ember shook her head.

"Vortex?" Danny ventured. "Valerie?"

She shook her head a second and third time, and then she scratched out one word with a very coarse voice before her eyes fluttered shut again: "_Voromni._"

This time, Danny couldn't rouse her. He bit his lip and looked over at Sam and Tucker, who both shivered on cue.

"I think we should get her somewhere safe," Danny said, "and then when she's better, we need to find out what happened."

"How are we going to transport her?" Tucker asked.

"Tucker, you're holding a ghost containment device," Sam said, slapping a hand against her face.

"Oh, yeah," Tucker said, sticking his tongue out for a moment as he stared at the thermos in his hand. "Danny, you might want to step back."

Danny nodded and backed away from Ember. Tucker readied the Fenton Thermos and fired it. A beam of light shot out as usual and enveloped Ember.

He gave a closed-eyes grin, and patted the Thermos. When he opened his eyes, the grin faded.

Ember was still there. The Fenton Thermos had not worked on her.

He tried again, with the same results. Ember wouldn't disappear into the Thermos.

"This is starting to freak me out a little bit," Sam said.

"I've been freaked out since we saw her," Danny replied. "Come on, I guess I'll have to fly her invisible. Let's get her into an alley where we know no one's watching. I'll text you when Ember wakes up; meet me at my house when I text."

* * *

><p>Lucky for him, his parents were out visiting a friend today, and so he could put Ember on a makeshift bed on a table in the lab without worrying about his parents stumbling in on it. He didn't want them tearing her apart molecule by molecule, even if she did give him a little trouble.<p>

Jazz was keeping watch on her while Danny took a call from Tucker. "Whatcha up to, Tuck?" Danny asked.

"I did some quick research," Tucker said. "The word Ember said, 'Voromni,' sounded like Latin to me. I made a rough guess as to how it was spelled. Omni, as you might have figured out from words like 'omnipotent' and 'omnipresent,' means roughly 'all,' or 'everything.' And that left the prefix 'vor-,' which after a little while, I decided was probably the same root as in the words 'herbivore,' like Sam, 'carnivore,' like me, and 'omnivore,' like you. Which means that the word that Ember said, 'voromni,' likely means 'eats everything.' I don't know about you, but that doesn't warm my troubled soul very much."

"I'm with you," Danny said. "That sounds a little ominous."

"Danny!" he heard Jazz call. "Her eyes are open! She won't talk, but she's awake!"

"Ember's awake," he shot to Tucker. "Tell Sam, and get over here when you can."

"Right-o," Tucker said, and he hung up.

Danny floated down the stairs to the lab quickly, and walked up to the table where Ember was sitting. She looked at him, and a lip twitched.

"We're keeping you safe here," Danny said.

Ember glanced over to the Ghost Portal and pointed a very shaky, weak-looking hand at it. "Is it sealed?" she rasped with the voice of someone who'd screamed for five straight hours.

"Yes, it's sealed tight," Danny said.

Ember visibly relaxed. She coughed once, but it was a barely audible cough. She felt the top of her head where her hair should have been and shuddered.

"What happened?" Danny asked again. "You said Voromni. Is that some new ghost?"

She nodded. "Never seen it or heard of it before," she whispered. "Just this… mammoth creature… looked like Grandma McLain's worse cooking results. I saw it flying at me… and I fled, but it pursued… so I fought back, but it was so powerful… It assaulted me with a barrage of meat products, and then trapped me in this box of energy."

"Meat products?" Danny asked, frowning. "A box of energy?"

"I fought my way out with my guitar, but by then it was too close. It… It transformed into a dragon, and snapped its tail into me. I plummeted to the ground, and it grabbed me and… it turned back into its porridge-looking animal-like form. It shoved me in its mouth, and it felt like my energy was being sucked out. It spit me out, and my flame was out and I could barely speak, and my guitar was powerless. I couldn't even fly or turn intangible."

"How did you get out of the Ghost Zone?" Jazz asked. Danny had been wondering the same thing.

"Found Wulf," she croaked. "He fled into the human world when Voromni approached, and I left with him so that I could find you."

Danny blanched. "He closed the portal, right?"

Ember nodded.

Danny breathed a sigh of relief. "How long ago was this?" he asked nervously.

"A full day," Ember said. "I've been trekking towards Casper High since I woke up this morning."

Danny hated to think how long that thing had been on the loose. He was starting to form a theory—it sounded like this Voromni creature was stealing and draining power out of other ghosts and adding it to his own energy. That meant the longer it was on the loose, the harder it was going to be to defeat. By the sound of it, Voromni had already gotten Ember, the Box Ghost, the Lunch Lady, and Dora the Dragon Ghost, or perhaps her brother.

"You said you just had no ghost attributes whatsoever?" Danny asked. "You couldn't turn intangible?"

Ember nodded. "But for some reason, I passed through walls anyway inside the Ghost Zone, without even trying."

"Then Voromni completely drained you of your powers," Danny said. "That's why we couldn't carry you back in the thermos, either. He essentially made you human."

Ember groaned and put her hands over her face.

"And humans pass through everything in the Ghost Zone," Danny added. "That's why you went through stuff."

There was a slam of the door; Danny feared his parents for a moment before remembering that he'd asked Tucker and Sam to come over.

They came running down the stairs to look at Ember. "So what's the story?" Sam asked, biting her lip.

"It's this creature in the Ghost Zone that looks like a huge animal made out of porridge," Jazz said.

"And that's Voromni?" Tucker said.

"It absorbed all of Ember's ghostly energy," Danny said. "She can't use any ghost powers, not even flight, invisibility, intangibility, energy rays… nothing. She's so human now that she was _passing through stuff_ in the Ghost Zone—only humans do that."

"That's kind of…" Sam started, and then she shook her head. "Scratch that. I meant, that's _extremely_ unsettling."

"Yeah," Danny said. "That's why we couldn't even get her in the thermos."

"Some ghost monster did that?" Tucker asked.

"And it _stole her powers?_" Sam asked.

"Yeah. This one looks like it's going to be a toughie."

Ember coughed and shook her head. "No. Not one."

The four teens gaped. "_What?_" Danny shouted. "More than one of them?"

Ember chuckled hoarsely. "Just messing with ya."

Danny's heart rate slowed a little bit, but he growled at Ember. "Thanks for almost making me have a heart attack," Danny shot. "Anyway, Sam and Tucker… something's been making me worry. I don't really know how to phrase this, but… We're still encountering new ghosts and new challenges, right? Most recently that I've fought, I mean, that'd be Vortex, Undergrowth, Amorpho, Nocturn, Wardback, and Hemozoa."

"But you didn't face Wardback," Sam said, frowning. "You said you just talked with him."

"Y-Yeah, I just misspoke," Danny blurted. "I meant, I didn't face Wardback, but I encountered him and I faced and encountered all those others I said! I mean… You know what I mean."

Sam's eyes narrowed. Danny hoped she wasn't expecting that he'd lied about not fighting Wardback.

"So my point was, I'm still meeting new ghosts," Danny said. "I assume this is a new one, too. And we're unfamiliar with them because they're new to the human world. But… ghosts aren't exactly new to the Ghost Zone. How could no ghost have ever heard of this thing before? Do new ghosts still just pop up in the Ghost Zone?"

"That's weird," Sam agreed. "Ember, any thoughts on that?"

"I don't know where it came from," Ember said in her shaky, raspy voice. "And I didn't have time to ask if anyone knew. I just know that we ghosts named it Voromni."

"I'm… really kind of freaked out about this," Danny said. "I think we need to go _into_ the Ghost Zone to stop this thing."

"What?" Sam asked. "Why would we need to do that?"

"It would be an absolute catastrophe if it got, say, Undergrowth, or Vortex. Or both! Then what happens if it gets Wulf and steals his power to claw through dimensions? We wouldn't be able to stop it!"

"Wulf is in the human world," Sam said. "We don't have to worry about that."

"We don't know if there are other ghosts who can do that!" Danny said. "My point is, firstly, we can't let it get so powerful that we couldn't beat it. And secondly, we can't let this thing attack all these ghosts, anyway. We have to help them."

Sam folded her arms. "And what if it absorbs _you_, Danny? What do we do then?"

Danny wanted to argue, but so far, Sam had been right about both encountering Wardback (sort of) and traveling through the Zoan Wall. It seemed like she probably, at this point, knew what she was talking about. Yet something had to be done.

"Well, what can we do, then?" Danny asked, scratching his neck. "I refuse to sit here while that thing gets more powerful."

"I'm thinking," Sam said. "I want to get rid of this thing as much as you do."

"Let's go through all of your parents' inventions," Tucker said. "Your mom just remade the Spirit Spear. That's a plus. That one worked great last time."

"And," Jazz added, "she made it into a retractable harpoon! You can detach it and use it as normal, but with the harpoon feature, it's a distance weapon."

"We've got the Ghost Gauntlets," Danny added, "but I don't think I want to get that close."

"True that," Sam said. "What about the Fenton Crammer? Maybe you could shrink his powers!"

"Or the Fenton Peeler!" Jazz called. "That might peel away the layers of powers he's added on from other ghosts!"

"That's a good one, Jazz," Sam said, impressed.

"And maybe just in case, we could take Fenton Fishers or the Jack-o'-Nine-Tails," Tucker added.

"What else have Mom and Dad invented?" Jazz wondered aloud.

"I like the idea of using the Fenton Crammer to shrink it and short out its powers, and the Fenton Peeler to weaken it," Danny offered. "And of course, since we'd be in the Ghost Zone, we wouldn't have to worry about the collateral damage of my Ghostly Wail." He puffed out his chest.

"Forgot about that nifty power," Sam said.

"Forgot about the word 'nifty,'" Tucker said.

"But still, you shouldn't use all your power at once unless you really need to."

"I suppose not. But still, it's probably going to help us."

Sam sighed. "All right, Danny. We'll go after this thing with ecto-guns blazing. But please, promise me you—"

Danny's ghost sense went off suddenly as the ghost portal opened behind them. Tucker yelped and grabbed a Fenton Ghost Fisher and stood in a widened stance, shaking slightly.

"How did the Ghost Portal get open?" Jazz asked, and whipped out an extendable metal pole with glowing green ends, which was able to send any ghost back into the Ghost Zone… at least, most of them. Hopefully this creature wouldn't be powerful enough to resist that effect…

Danny tensed and growled, "Going ghost," and the band of light swept across him, readying him for the fight he was expecting with Voromni…

But instead of a mass of porridge, a familiar ghost popped out of the Ghost Zone. He was a dark green-skinned ghost wearing a gray shirt and a forest-green jacket with sunglasses on his forehead and dark, shifty eyes—it was Filch again.

"Again?" Danny shouted.

Filch's eyebrows vaulted when he saw Danny. "How did you know I was going to be here?" he muttered. "Come ON."

"I dumped you in the farthest stretches of the Ghost Zone last time!" Danny groaned. "How did you get back through? And how did you open the Ghost Portal?"

"You think I'm gonna give that away?" Filch laughed. "Who do you think I am, Technus? I'm outta here!"

The thieving ghost flew into the air, but Sam had been at the ready with a Fenton Thermos and she sucked him in. As he realized what was happening, he gave a shout and something dropped from one of his bulging pockets; he disappeared a second later and Sam slapped the cap on.

"What's with the garage door opener?" Tucker asked, staring at the small device that Filch had dropped.

"I'll bet you that's a Ghost Portal opener," Danny said. He picked it up and transformed back into a human. There was a green button and a red button; he pressed the red button, and the ghost portal closed instantly. "He's the ghost of theft. He must have stolen it when we weren't here. Smart of him."

Sam sighed. "All right. I suppose I'll have to start again. I know you need to do something. But please, promise me you'll be careful. Don't get too close to this thing, whatever it is. I really care about—"

They were interrupted again by a sudden blast of noise that echoed throughout the house. "_OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!_" It sounded like a terrible impression of a ghost's wail, voiced by Jack Fenton.

"What the heck _is_ that?" Sam shouted over the noise, which continued for about five seconds.

"That… would be the new doorbell," Jazz said, casting a look up at the sky. "I hope that's not audible from the outside."

"Who is that?" Danny asked, a little nervous.

"Don't worry," Jazz said, running upstairs. "I'll keep him away from the lab. It's Dash; I'm tutoring him in English."

"Anyway, Danny, I care about you," Sam said, finishing her thought before there was another interruption.

"I care about…" Danny's brow furrowed and he looked after Jazz at the stairs. "Dash?"

"You care about Dash?" Tucker repeated, not bothering to stifle his laugh.

Danny glared at him, then continued his thought. "I thought Jazz wasn't tutoring Dash anymore," he said. "He kept trying to ask her out, and she wasn't getting anywhere because he kept staring at her without taking in anything she said."

"We'll have to ask her about that, after we save an entire dimension," Sam said. "Should we… um… go?"

"What else do we have to do?" Danny asked, sliding open a drawer and grabbing the Spirit Spear. He then pushed a lever forward, opening a garage-like door that had recently been built next to the lab. The Specter Speeder hovered inside.

"Well, maybe we could make some sort of a plan," Sam said.

"Sam, when have any of our plans ever actually worked?" Danny stated. "We plan, we get there, and all hell breaks loose."

"Stop quoting the last Harry Potter movie, Danny, and be serious," Sam said. "You can't get too close, so how do we go about doing this?"

"Don't you guys get too close, either," Danny said. "My parents would probably kill me if I wrecked another Specter Speeder."

"I'm pretty sure we'd have kept our distance anyway," Tucker said. "I mean, it sounds like it only attacks ghosts, but it's still a gargantuan porridge-monster, and I've never met a gargantuan porridge-monster that I've liked."

Danny let out a little puff of laughter. "Just… use the Spirit Spear on the harpoon," he said. "It's retractable, which is nice because we won't lose it. And somebody's going to man the Fenton Peeler."

"I've done it before," Sam said. "I'll do it. Tucker, you can take the Spirit Harpoon."

Danny scratched his head. "When did you use the Fenton Peeler?" he asked.

"Against… um… well, I know I used it," Sam said. Truth was, she'd used it when Ember, Kitty, and Spectra had made all the men disappear. Danny and Jack had been at Lake Eerie at the time.

"I remember that," Ember said softly.

"See, Ember remembers!" Sam said, smiling.

"Cute rhyme," Tucker said. "You should write a song that rhymes those words."

"Shut up," Ember rasped.

"Hey," Danny said, frowning. "What are we going to do with Ember?"

"Shove her in the garage that had the Specter Speeder?" Tucker suggested. Ember glared at him weakly.

"Sorry, Ember, but I think we're going to have to do that," Danny said. "We can't have Dash or my parents stumble down and find you; they'd probably dissolve you in acid or something."

"Dash would too?" Tucker asked.

"Stop mixing up what I'm saying!" Danny yelled. "My parents would dissolve her. Dash would probably ask for her autograph."

"So let's go, then," Tucker said. "Before that creature gets any other ghosts and gets more powerful."

"I really hope that beating it will give the powers back to the ghosts who've lost them," Sam said.

"It has to," Danny assured her, but more so, assuring himself.

"Then I suppose we'll go," Sam said, her mouth tightening up a little bit. "Stay safe, Danny, I'm serious. I want you back whole, powers and all!"

"You were worried like this when I went to go face the Ghost King," Danny said, "and I came back from that!"

"You had the exo-skeleton," Sam said.

"Yeah," Danny said. "I need to get Dad to make another one of those somehow."

"Come on, Sam," Tucker said, boarding the Specter Speeder. He took the wheel; Sam gave Danny a glance and then walked to the other side and boarded as well. Danny put on the headphone set to communicate with them, and then Danny pressed the green button on the portal opener that he'd taken from Filch. The portal door parted, and Danny and the Specter Speeder passed through into the Ghost Zone.

* * *

><p>"REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED. REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED. REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED. REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED."<p>

"What is that?" Danny asked, floating beside the Specter Speeder.

"This concerns me more than a little," Tucker said. "That's the Real World Item Detector, in case it wasn't obvious to you. It's going off like gangbusters, and flashing a whole lot of different shapes of ghosts that we know, and a whole lot of different shapes of ghosts that we _don't_ know. The Box Ghost. The Lunch Lady. Dora. Klemper. Johnny 13, his shadow, and Kitty, Youngblood, Spectra, and even Technus. And then of course, we know it got Ember, too. And there's at least a dozen shapes of other ghosts that we don't know. That's just in the general area, too. I don't know this thing's range, but there's got to be more ghosts than that who've been turned human by this creature."

"We'll… be careful."

"_Really?_" Sam blurted. "Careful? Who would think you'd be careful in a situation like this? I think we'd be better off being careless!"

"I get it, I stated the obvious," Danny said. "Let's find this thing, quick." He flew ahead and up to scan the landscape… though there wasn't really enough land in sight to call it a landscape.

"I see something," Danny said. "Something big, the same shape and color as thrown-up cat food."

"You don't have a cat," Tucker observed.

"Grandpa Fenton did," Danny answered.

"Whether or not he has a cat, that's still disgusting," Sam said. "But at least we didn't have to spend forever hunting."

They sped towards the beast, their heart rates quickening. Danny gulped and readied himself to do anything necessary to beat this thing.

Sam activated the Fenton Peeler inside the Specter Speeder, to get ready. The armor formed around her, and she readied the weapon on her arm. Tucker kept driving, but he gripped the Spirit Harpoon with one hand.

"I think we need to rename it," Tucker said. "When it became a harpoon instead of a spear, the alliteration just vanished."

"Let's worry about that later!" Sam yelled. "And besides, the Fenton Peeler doesn't have alliteration… we don't need that."

"I've been thinking about that, actually. It should have been named the Shade Shredder."

"Who cares?"

"The beauty of language cares!"

"The beauty of language? They invented the freaking Spooktacles!"

"Calm down, guys," Danny said. "We want to face this thing at our best state of mind."

"Then tell Sam to stop threatening me with the peeler!"

"Sam, stop threatening Tucker with the peeler. Tucker, stop trying to impress a nonexistent audience with your exhausted witticisms."

Tucker gave a "humph" and drove stiffly forward. They were almost upon the beast; it was heading in the other direction slowly. After a little more pursuit, they were within a football field of it; it was about the same size as Fenton Works.

"We should sneak up on it," Danny whispered.

Voromni whipped around and stared at them; Danny had the eerie feeling that it had heard him from that distance. They slowed their pursuit, drifting closer slowly, more details of the beast coming into focus.

It looked like a manatee that had grown legs, and had its skin turned into oatmeal. Swirling under its skin were blue and green wisps of light… He hated to think that was the ghostly power of the ones it had consumed, but that seemed like it was right.

"Okay," Sam said. "Get ready for this."

Tucker shifted gears on the Specter Speeder to get ready for quick acceleration, then he took out the Spirit Harpoon. He pressed a button that pulled up the windshield, opening up the front of the vehicle so that he and Sam could fire their weapons out of it.

The monster stared at Danny with enormous eyes. It seemed like this thing was _evaluating_ him, using some power it absorbed to scan him and determine how much of a threat he was.

They were about twenty yards away, and the Speeder slowed to a stop. Danny was eager to stop, too. He was staring at this creature, wondering what he could do to it. It looked like it was rather fluid. Maybe he could freeze and shatter it.

Voromni then held up a paw and fired a ray of energy at him. Danny threw up an ecto-shield, but this was a blast unlike anything he'd ever encountered. It not only shattered his shield instantly and kept traveling through, it made a small explosion on contact with him and blasted him directly downwards; he slammed into the land below and lifted himself up on shaky arms.

Tucker shot the Spirit Harpoon, which made a direct line at Voromni's face. But without making a move, it took control of the device, slowing it to a stop, and made it fire backwards at the same velocity. It would have punched a hole through the Specter Speeder if Tucker hadn't been quick with the wheel.

"Voromni's got Technus's mental ability to control machines!" Tucker yelled.

Sam fired the Fenton Peeler, but Voromni blew a breath of freezing air that froze the energy ray solid, and it fell to the surface below and shattered.

"Voromni's got Klemper's freezing powers!" Sam shouted.

"It's gotten everybody," Tucker said.

"Not me!" came Danny's cry, and he rose up, his eyes glowing icy blue. He fired a ray of cold from his eyes, but Voromni stomped its foot hard into the ground. A wave of energy radiated from the source and dissipated the energy he'd shot, then continued and slammed into Danny and the Speeder, pushing them back with a loud sound like a sonic boom.

"Voromni's gotten too powerful already!" Sam said.

"One shot left!" Danny shouted. "Guys, get ready to pick me up in the Speeder and shoot out of here if this doesn't work. I'm going with the wail!"

Tucker positioned the Speeder so it was facing Danny, and Danny took in a sharp breath. Voromni's eyes seemed to widen.

He let loose a deafening, continuous howl that made even the air rumble. Voromni dug its claws into the earth, but its skin was rippling and pieces were flying off. Wisps of energy were escaping, and it started to shrink a little bit.

Danny was feeling the strain in his head, and he kept his eyes closed. He didn't see Voromni howl and huddle itself close to the ground. Voromni's shadow rose from the ground, just like Johnny 13, and it swept along the ground until it was just under Danny.

"No!" Sam yelled; it was inaudible over the wail. She blasted the Fenton Peeler under Danny, but the shadow shot up too quickly. It smashed into Danny and wrapped around him, then bent back like a rubber band and launched him directly at Voromni. Its jaw opened expectantly, and Danny opened his eyes in time to see himself flying into a nightmare. He swung his arms, and struggled against his flight path, stopped in midair, and started to fly the other way.

His heart stopped and panic flooded into him when a mass of sludge wrapped around him, and he knew it was Voromni's hand. He was about to unleash a blast of cold and freeze it solid, but he was immediately crammed into a dark, cavernous mouth which closed around him, and he lost consciousness as his skin erupted into fire.

* * *

><p>He next woke in a somewhat dark area. Sam and Tucker breathed a sigh of relief when his eyes opened and he sat up. He looked to his left and saw Ember resting next to him, and the Specter Speeder floating next to that. "Where… Are we back in the lab?"<p>

Tucker nodded.

"Why are we hiding in the Specter Speeder garage…?" Danny asked, then he looked at his arm.

He was still in his ghostly form, but he felt human in every way except for the absence of the usual glow around him. "Oh no," he said. "Please, no. That didn't happen."

"It happened," Sam said, grimacing. "Can you go human?"

He concentrated, but no band of light formed around him. He placed his hands slowly over his face.

"I'm stuck in ghost form, without being able to turn back, but I can't even use my powers!" Danny moaned. "When my parents find me, they're going to dissect me, and I can't even do anything about it!"

"That's why we're hiding you in here," Sam said. "I already told Jazz. She's still upstairs with Dash; I took her aside and told her."

"And when she came back, I went and got this," Tucker said. He held up the wig that he and Sam had used in the past; it looked just like his hair.

"Why would I need that?" Danny asked.

"Well, because we don't know when we're going to be able to get your powers back," Tucker explained. "You're going to need to wear this… and those—" he pointed across the room at a set of Danny's normal clothes which were hanging on a coat rack— "until your powers come back."

Danny frowned. "What about my eyes? I've got blue eyes, but they're green right now."

Tucker smiled uneasily and held up a pair of sunglasses.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Afraid not, man."

Danny patted his belt, and his eyes shot open. "Tucker. Sam." His words were rapid and alarmed. "Where's the remote-controlled Fenton Portal opener?"

"What?" Tucker said. "You had that with you!"

"Did you put me in the Specter Speeder? Check the floor! Check everywhere that I might have dropped it. Oh man. Oh man. If Voromni got hold of it…"

"Calm down," Tucker said. "That thing's hands were the size of one of our classrooms. It probably couldn't see it. Even if it did see it, it couldn't press the button. Even if it pressed the button, it wouldn't know what the device does. Even if it did know, it couldn't fit through the portal. Calm. Down."

Danny relaxed slightly, but most of his tension remained. Things like this never ended well.

Sam exited the Specter Speeder. "The remote's not in there."

Danny closed his eyes and tried to calm his racing heart. He took deep breaths. There was no reason to panic…

Following this self-reassurance was the unmistakable sound of the Fenton Portal opening. Danny leapt up from his seat and grabbed the Spirit Harpoon that was leaning against the wall.

"Oh, and I thought of a name for that," Tucker blurted. "The Haunt Harpoon!"

"On a different day, I'd kill you for saying that," Danny said. "_Guys. The portal is open!_"

He reached for the handle on the door and heaved it upwards, not wanting to wait for the slow automatic opener. He stepped right next to the portal and readied the harpoon for Voromni.

He expected to see a massive leg of oatmeal burst through the Fenton Portal, into which he would eject the harpoon. But he was thrown off by the fact that _he_ emerged from the portal—his human image, perfect in every way—holding the portal remote.

He triggered the harpoon, but it wouldn't fire. Voromni was controlling it. Danny instead raised it over his head and thrust it at the disguised beast, but it turned intangible and he fell completely through it. Then it flew into the air and disappeared through the wall.

"We have to follow it!" Danny screamed. He started to run, but Tucker grabbed his arm.

"Dude!" he yelled. "You can't go out looking like this. If the Guys in White see you, you're _dead._ Period. If your parents see you, you're _dead_. Period. If anyone finds you, you're going to be mobbed, or discovered, or something, because you need to be _yourself,_ too. Danny. Be rational. Calm down, change your outfit, and put the sunglasses on."

Danny ran to the garage and changed his pants and shoes. He threw off the shirt, stuffed the wig on, and grabbed his normal shirt and ran upstairs while trying to get into the shirt at the same time.

"Danny!" Tucker yelled, running after him; Sam followed. "Danny! The sunglasses!"

Danny burst into the kitchen, still struggling with the shirt, and when he finally stopped running and got it over his head, he was staring at Dash, who looked just about to leave.

"Fenton?" Dash asked, his jaw dropping. "Fenton, you're… You're freakin' _ripped,_ man!"

"I am?" Danny asked, puzzled slightly by the compliment.

"Like, yeah," Dash laughed. "Geez, man, you could be on the wrestling team!"

"Wha…?" Danny had figured that his training was paying off physically. Since the President's fitness test, he'd done a little more body work, just in case something else happened like the Fenton Crammer incident with Dash…

That was kind of fun, actually. Looking back, knowing that he did indeed make it back to full size without his head going on Skulker's wall, and didn't reveal his identity to Dash, it was a little bit fun.

"Thanks, Dash," he said, enjoying his own confusion at the strange friendliness.

"Sorry," Dash said. "For breaking character, I mean. I'm in a good mood. Jazz really helped me with my essay for Lancer."

"It looks a lot better," Jazz agreed. "Come back next week if you feel like you need to."

"I will," Dash said. He turned to Danny, and looked like he was about to say something, but then he laughed. "I'm gonna leave before I say something that _really_ breaks my character. I'm feeling an 'A' on this paper!" He skipped joyfully out of the room.

"Glad he didn't notice the eyes," Sam said angrily, shoving the sunglasses in his face. "Seriously, Danny, do you want to blow your cover?"

Danny put the sunglasses on. "Jazz, you didn't happen to notice, just now, someone who looked like me? Flying out the roof?"

"What? No! Why?"

"Voromni stole my ability to change human," Danny said, "and apparently, he can turn into my exact human form. I—"

Screams filled the air. Danny ran to the window and pressed his face against it, but he couldn't see anything. Dash burst back in the door, stammering and pointing.

"Dash, what happened?"

"Nice shades, Fenton," Dash said, then his eyes rolled up and he fainted, collapsing on the ground.

"Tucker, help me drag him to the Op Center transport," Danny said. "We need to see what's going on."

* * *

><p>They stared out the window of the Op Center. Voromni was plainly visible; the monster was in its natural form. Since several hours before, it had simply camped out over what from this distance appeared to be the local supermarket. That made sense, since it was reaching into a building, pulling things out and stuffing them in its mouth. It was clearing out the shelves of the market and feeding, growing steadily larger, just as Hemozoa had.<p>

Once Jack and Maddie had returned, the Op Center had become sort of a planning center on how to get rid of the ghostly beast. Neither the Fenton Thermos nor the Fenton Ghost Weasel worked on it; the Fentons didn't know why.

In attendance were Danny, Jazz, Jack and Maddie; Sam and Tucker and their parents; Valerie and her father; Mrs. McFadden from the home appliance store, who was apparently somewhat of an amateur ghost researcher; Vlad Masters (much to Danny's chagrin); the new head of Axiom Labs, Trent Wheelwright; and the Guys in White. Dash was there but was sitting in a corner, pressing an ice pack against his head.

One of the Guys in White started the conversation. "This ghost-draining monster could potentially cause millions in damage," he said. "We need to go on the offensive before it starts moving again. Once it starts moving, there'll be incredible destruction."

The other cleared his throat. "We can't attack it with normal ecto-weaponry. There's something strange about it. Either it's able to mask its ecto-signature and make itself appear non-ghost, or it isn't even a ghost at all."

Valerie had brought her laptop, and she cleared her throat as the adults were discussing the situation. "Danny… Could we go down to your room or something? I need to show you guys something, but… I can't do it here."

Danny was taken aback. Was Valerie going to go after the beast? Was she going to tell them that she was the Ghost Hunter? What else could this mean?

"Yeah," Danny said. "Let's head down to my room. Get Dash?"

He, Sam, and Tucker went down the lift first, and wound up in Danny's room. Danny sat down at his computer, Tucker and Sam sat on the edge of his bed, and then when Valerie, Dash, and Jazz came down, Dash took the chair and the two girls sat on the floor.

Valerie sighed heavily. "All right, so… I have some information that might help. Danny, I think we should pretend it's from you."

"What?" Danny asked.

"Firstly, could you take off those ridiculous sunglasses?" Valerie frowned.

"No!" Danny said. "I… just had my eyes dilated. They're very sensitive to light."

"All right," Valerie said. "Anyway, I said, I have some information that might help. But… it would be weird if it was coming from me. I mean, I have no connections to ghosts."

_Except me and Vlad,_ Danny thought.

"But if we present the information as if it's from you or your parents," Valerie continued, "it wouldn't be as weird. I mean, your parents hunt ghosts."

She turned the laptop to them, displaying information on a multitude of ghosts. The Box Ghost, Danny Phantom, Skulker, Technus, Desiree… "I don't know if anything in here can help, but maybe it will."

Danny nodded. "Yep."

"You're not going to ask why I have extensive ghost files?"

Danny shook his head. "Nope."

Valerie continued. "The Guys in White said that it had absorbed most of the ghosts in the Ghost Zone, and their powers. So we should have information on the ghosts and their powers, and then maybe we'll… know what we're up against." She sighed. "Unfortunately, my records aren't complete."

Danny gave Sam, Tucker, and Jazz a glance, and nodded. He cleared his throat next. "Um… yeah. Maybe I can help." He shook his mouse to get his computer out of the screen saver, and then clicked on his ghost files.

Valerie looked stunned at the extensive files that Danny had procured. "What… Where did you get all this information?" she asked.

"I thought it wasn't weird because my parents hunt ghosts," Danny said, but he still reddened a bit.

"That's some pretty good work you've done," Valerie said. "Their… what? Their general place of dwelling are listed on here? Have you been _in_ the Ghost Zone?"

Danny hesitated, but nodded yes. "Yeah. I've been in there a couple times just to have a look. It's… amazing."

Dash came over and looked at the screen, squinting, keeping the ice pack against his head. "Wow," he said. "That's a lot of stuff." His nose wrinkled. "You nerd."

"Remember any of these ghosts?" Danny asked, ignoring the typical Dash comment. "Some of them have been in our school."

Dash nodded, and pointed to Desiree. "I remember her," he said. "What does she do?"

"She grants any wish she hears," Danny said. "See, long ago, this powerful sultan promised her everything her heart—"

"Why don't we go find her and wish that creature was dead?" Dash asked.

"Well, that's…" Danny trailed off. He paused in stunned silence, and then burst out laughing, the sunglasses almost falling off his face. "What the heck. That's BRILLIANT! Embarrassingly simple, but BRILLIANT!"

"That is actually…" Sam nodded. "One of the smartest things I've ever heard him say."

"Thanks," Dash mumbled sheepishly.

"Come on," Danny said. "Everyone downstairs. In the lab and into the Specter Speeder. We're going to go find Desiree and hope she hasn't been drained. If she has been, we'll wish at that thing in person!"

* * *

><p>The door to the garage with the Specter Speeder opened up. Danny walked towards the Speeder, but he suddenly froze and tensed. His Danny Phantom clothes were strewn randomly on the ground near the coat rack.<p>

Danny turned around and blocked the entrance as best he could with both hands. "Um—WAIT!" he bellowed, making it up as he went along. "Um… Before we go into the Ghost Zone, there's one thing you need to know…" He trailed off, and pulled at his collar. "Sam! Tell them what they need to know!" He stepped to the side, and then frantically gathered up the boots, pants, and shirt, and looked left and right for a place to hide them.

"Uh—Right!" Sam yelled, understanding quickly. "We… Uh… In the Ghost Zone, normal items, including people, pass through stuff! It's like we're the ghosts when we're inside the Ghost Zone!"

"That's cool," Valerie said, trying to peer around Sam.

Danny found an empty trash can and stuffed the clothing in. He raced back and called, "Come on in, everybody!" while leaning against the Speeder as if he had been leaning there the whole time, except he was breathing quickly and heavily.

Valerie was too impressed with the Speeder to notice, thankfully, and Dash was too befuddled from his earlier blackout to be paying much attention either. Danny opened the side door, and Dash, Valerie, and Jazz sat in the center. Tucker took the wheel, Sam took the passenger seat, and Danny took the map. It was weird going inside the Speeder; he'd gotten so used to flying next to it.

Dash punched his arm. "Ow!" Danny shouted. "What was that for?"

Dash's reply was, "I've been slacking on my duties as a duly deputized nerd whaler."

"Um… Okay," Danny said. "Anyway… Watch, and be amazed." The portal was still open, and the Speeder drifted out of the garage and then passed through the portal.

Dash and Valerie were pressed against the side windows in amazement. "It's… amazing here," Dash said in a hushed voice.

"It's beautiful," Valerie whispered.

"And it's creepy," Jazz said. "Let's find Desiree quickly."

Danny directed Tucker on a full thirty-minute trip to where Desiree resided. It was a large palace adorned with beautiful jewels, with fountains and towers and sculptures and statues… suits of armor… everything imaginable for a grand castle. Which would make sense. It was everything one could wish for.

The Speeder pulled up and parked on a bridge leading to the castle. "Um… No real world items detected in there?" Sam asked Tucker.

"No," Tucker said. "So unless Desiree's not here, though we haven't seen her abroad in a while, I think she hasn't been found yet. She was pretty far from the attacks, anyway."

Four of them raced out of the Speeder; Tucker and Sam stayed behind to guard it. Danny led Dash, Valerie, and Jazz into the palace; they entered through magnificent and large double doors in the front, and ran directly through the guards who tried to stop them in the atrium.

They passed through the next doors without opening them; Jazz, Dash, and Valerie were a little slower due to not being used to running directly through objects. It really did look like you were about to run into something. But the next doors they passed through, after vanishing between more guards, led them straight to Desiree's throne.

Desiree slammed a hand on either side of the jeweled chair, and she rose with a finger pointing. "Guards!" she shouted. "Seize them!"

Danny pointed right back. "I wish you would hear us out!" he called.

Desiree's guards stopped and stood still. Her eye twitched, but she sat back down and folded her fingers together, and actually smiled. "Go on, ghost boy."

Dash and Valerie straightened up, confused. Jazz thought quickly, and whispered to them, "They call him Ghost Boy because he's a boy who treks a lot through the Ghost Zone and knows a lot about ghosts." Valerie and Dash nodded.

"There's this creature that ravaged the Ghost Zone just a little while ago," Danny said. "You may have heard of it. Voromni."

"I am safe in here," Desiree said. "I am not leaving."

"It's in the human world right now," Danny said. "You have to help us defeat it or it'll cause unimaginable damage."

Desiree frowned. "And why would I help you?"

"Because I wish you would," Danny said, walking forward and standing resolutely in front of her.

Desiree flexed her fingers and then crashed them into the sides of the throne. "You foolish boy," she said. "In _my_ domain, _I_ decide which wishes I grant. You are not going to force me into slave labor because you are too foolish to devise a solution on your own! Guards, once again, seize them!"

Danny whipped a Fenton Thermos out from behind his back. The guards attempted to grab him, but their hands passed through, and so did their spears when they tried that next. "You can come with us nicely or you can come with us the hard way. Or, you can let the human world, and likely the Ghost Zone next, get damaged beyond normal means of repair. What'll it be?"

Desiree fired a blast of energy at him in response, and Danny leapt expertly out of the way. In response, Valerie whipped out an ecto-pistol which fired a small ball of energy. Its blast knocked Desiree into her throne and knocked them both over. Danny next aimed and fired the Fenton Thermos. She tried to flee, but was unsuccessful, and she disappeared. Danny then aimed the thermos at the guards; they all, screamed, ducked, and dove through the walls and floor or vanished.

"Come on," Danny said, turning around.

Valerie and Dash were gaping. "Danny…" Jazz said, pointing with a trembling hand above his head.

"What?" Danny asked.

"Fenton…" Dash whispered, gawking at him. "No way."

Danny felt his hair and gasped. His wig had dislodged during the tumble he'd used to dodge Desiree's blast; it slid up and was revealing white hair underneath. He hastily fixed it, but the damage had been done.

"White hair," Valerie said. "Extensive ghost files. And she called you the Ghost Boy. Danny… Are you…"

"Danny Phantom?" Dash finished, gasping.

Jazz coughed loudly. "W-What? Of course not, what are you talking about?"

"You can stop covering for him now, Jazz," Valerie said softly.

Danny reached a shaky hand up to his face and removed his sunglasses, revealing his glowing green eyes. Valerie and Dash both gasped as one. Danny had decided it was not worth arguing against this time, and he pulled off the wig, too.

"Danny Phantom!" Dash burst out, grinning wildly. "No way! No way! You're the MAN!" He thought for a minute, if Dash was capable of thought. "No wonder you were jacked! But then… how come you didn't fight it? You coulda won!"

Danny shook his head. "I did fight it already."

"You lost?" Valerie whispered in awe.

Danny was half expecting Valerie to whip out the pistol again on him. He was glad to hear that it sounded like she still trusted him, but it was still very weird that he was exposing himself around people outside of the normal circle.

"Yes," he said. "Yeah. I failed. It was too powerful. It got me and sucked my power out." Valerie and Dash both cupped their hands to their mouths and took in twin gasps. "I'm stuck in my ghost form. I can't change back."

"That's about to be over," Jazz said. "Come on. We need to hurry back to the Speeder to get back to the human world before Voromni takes off. Guys," she said, turning to Dash and Valerie. "There is no circumstance, not a single situation that could ever arise in a million years where you could say this to anyone. You can't tell people as a secret. You can't tell people and make them promise to keep it a secret. No one can know about Danny. Understand?"

Valerie and Dash nodded slowly, staring at Danny, not at Jazz. Danny smiled weakly, then ran out without looking back, assuming they were following close behind.

* * *

><p>"Here we go," Danny said.<p>

The six kids were standing ten yards from the massive, sleeping creature; Danny was holding the Thermos.

"I hope this works," he said, and he uncapped the Thermos and hit the Release button.

Desiree and Filch both popped out; Filch shook his head and flew off. Danny didn't care much about that right now; he shouted, "I wish you wouldn't try to escape us!" to ensure that Desiree stayed right here.

She folded her arms, but allowed him to wish; after all, she did get more powerful with each wish she granted. "So you have wished it suhshuhluhbeh," she mumbled, annoyed.

Danny pointed at Voromni. "I wish that creature was locked in a strong crystal sarcophagus behind the Zoan Wall from which it cannot escape," he declared, "and that all of its captured powers returned to their rightful owners."

As Desiree's arms glowed red, Voromni was surrounded by a red glow as well and suddenly woke up, thrashing against the ground. It appeared to be throwing off her power.

"I… cannot…" she whispered, struggling; her face was strained to the point of pain, it looked like, and her arms were starting to wither. "Too great a task for me…"

"Then I wish…" Danny asked, thinking quickly. "I wish I had a ghostly wail even as a human!"

Desiree released the thrashing porridge monster and pointed her arms at Danny. He felt a familiar power surging through his veins, and then his vocal chords; he let loose his signature ghost howl, and the world began to rumble.

Dash and Valerie looked around their feet nervously, but Sam and Tucker nodded at them while covering their ears; the two new additions caught on and covered theirs. The ground was cracking and buildings had windows shattering everywhere. Some of the buildings were already precarious from being smashed into by Voromni; those ones finally collapsed. And the kids could see blue and green strands of energy bursting out of Voromni's skin in every direction, all of them flying towards Fenton Works and into the basement where the Ghost Portal was. All of them except for one, that is; one of them wormed its way into Danny, and he breathed in deeply with ecstasy as he regained his former powers.

Danny opened his eyes to stare at Voromni; it looked like the Fenton Peeler had been at work. Layers of skin had flown off of it in every direction, and all that was left was a withered, pulsing husk, not bigger than a queen-sized bed.

The stress of the Ghostly Wail turned him back into a human, but he didn't need his powers anymore at the moment, so it was fine. He smirked. "I believe you have a previous wish to finish up, Desiree," he said. "Sending this thing to where it belongs: into eternal rest."

Desiree was growing more powerful with the wishes, and Voromni had grown much weaker. This time, she was able to rid it of the rest of its powers, which also flew towards Fenton Works.

A familiar crystal sarcophagus appeared. Voromni gave one last roar before it started to melt down, and the fluid swirled around, draining into the sarcophagus. The sarcophagus twisted and warped in the air, vanishing from their dimension completely.

"I wish anyone who was injured in this incident was healed," Danny said. "I wish all damage to buildings from this incident was repaired."

Desiree waved her arms; the rubble on the ground was magically lifted up and snapped back into place on the houses and buildings. She continued to grow, seeming more powerful with every wish that Danny made. But it had been worth it.

"Oh, and here's one," Danny added. "I wish I knew where this monster had come from."

Desiree held up a hand; a small window appeared in thin air, looking into the headquarters of the Guys in White.

"This experiment was a total disaster," one of them said. "It was supposed to destroy all the ghosts in the Ghost Zone. How did it manage to get to our world?"

The window disappeared, and Desiree's eyes flickered angrily as she watched the window go.

"Well," Danny said, looking back at the five other teens. "I guess that's not really the biggest surprise it could have been. But now, it's all over." Dash was looking at him with an impressed face, something Danny had never seen before.

Danny sighed. "I hate to do this, but… I let on too easily in the Ghost Zone, and I have a strict policy that none of my friends know my secret other than Sam, Tuck, and Jazz."

"Fenton, what are you saying?" Dash asked.

"I wish nobody remembered this incident except me, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz," Danny said, glancing at Desiree again.

Valerie reached out to Danny. "No, Danny!" she said, sounding genuinely hurt. "How could you? I… I had forgiven you." She sniffed. "For everything. I'm sorry I've been after you. And I know that Vlad Masters is a—" She vanished in a puff of red energy.

"She knows about Vlad?" Danny asked, glancing at Sam and Tucker.

"Fenton!" Dash said, actually looking like he was tearing up. "I can't believe you would… I hope I still continue to beat up on you for this one! I thought… you were… I was starting to realize, Fenton. I think I actually might l—" He disappeared next in the same puff of energy.

"They've been transported back to their rightful dwellings," Desiree stated. "As has everyone who has been displaced by this incident. Are you going to let me go now?"

Danny turned to her. "Thank you," he said.

Her nostrils flared. "Do not thank for this. You have forced me into these deeds. I do not accept your thanks."

"Well," Danny said, "I tried to make friends. Since we're still bitter enemies, I guess I'm going to have to wish for you to return to the Ghost Zone and never come back to the human world again."

Desiree laughed. "As soon as I return to my lair, I can break the power of your wish," she said. "I will be back; you can rely on that. But you had better not ever be back in my domain. I will be ready for you next time you try to pull a trick like this." She tossed her hair back. "But for now… I shall humor you. So you have wished it… so shall it be." She started to fly backwards towards Fenton Works, following the same path that all the ghostly energies had taken.

"And I wish I had the Fenton Portal remote opener!" Danny yelled, and with a wave of Desiree's hand, it appeared in Danny's. She vanished below the ground, and as soon as Danny was sure she should be back in the Ghost Zone, he pressed the red button to close the portal.

"You could have wished for her to send all the ghosts in the human world back into the Ghost Zone," Sam said.

"Or for more power," Tucker suggested.

"I don't know if she could have done those things," Danny argued. "She couldn't do the first wish I made. Because it was too big. And when she went back to her palace, she probably could have stopped letting that wish happen."

"True," Tucker said. "But it wouldn't have hurt to ask for a million dollars."

"You don't read those stories, do you," Sam said. "Like 'All the Money in the World,' or 'The Monkey's Paw.'"

"No," Tucker said. "Why?"

"Bad things happen to those who make selfish wishes," Sam said.

"Good thing mine weren't selfish," Danny said and smiled. "It was for the good of everyone."

"Did you hear Valerie?" Tucker asked. "She knew that Vlad was a ghost!"

"That's right," Sam said. "I wonder when she figured that out?"

"And Dash, I think, was about to say that he actually liked me," Danny said. "Go figure!"

What was it Dash had said, exactly, before he disappeared?

"_I was starting to realize, Fenton. I think I actually might l—"_

He was about to say "like you," right? Or was he about to say…

He laughed inwardly at the other thought that popped up. Well, it didn't matter now. Dash was going to go back to hating him, and honestly, it was pretty much a part of high school. He wouldn't have wished it any other way…

…would he?

-THE END-


	4. Episode 55: Love Games

EPISODE 55—LOVE GAMES

"You _stole_ that book?"

"Relax, Sam, it's just from the scummy Ghost Writer guy who trapped me in that story," Danny said.

"But that was because you destroyed his first Christmas poem," Sam said. "Danny… I'm getting tired of always criticizing you. But you've been so… so _criticizable_ lately! Freeing that blood-sucking ghost Hemozoa. Trying to go face that Voromni monster when you clearly had no chance. And now you've turned into a common thief!"

"I'm just borrowing it!" Danny said. "Believe me, I'll return it before the Ghost Writer gets back from Walker's prison. I don't want him to find out I stole from him and then have him trap me in another story. But the Ghost Writer's library had so much amazing stuff on the world of ghosts! And half-ghosts! This could really help me figure out my powers more! Did you know that there's been a total of sixteen known half-ghosts in chronicled history?"

"Sixteen?" Tucker said. "Jeez. That's more than I would have thought. Anyone we know?"

"Well, there's me and Vlad. Then there's Wardback—he was the first known half-ghost ever. But they don't even know his real name. Then they have a couple more names: Harold Smith, Iko Prasad, Noah Fontaine, Tia Jimenez, …um, two crazy-looking names, Xu Keidong, and three more names that I think I'd need several years to practice before I could get them right… Uma Thornton… okay, I'll give this one a go: Srinivasa Ramanujan… and Megan Wright. None of them live in North America right now except for Vlad and me. And out of those sixteen, six of them are alive right now. …Well, half-alive." He stopped to think for a moment. "Wait a minute… They don't have my 'cousin' Danielle in here."

"Well, that makes sense," Sam said. "She's really recent, isn't she?"

"Yeah, and the Ghost Writer's been in Walker's jail since then," Danny said, feeling slightly guilty. "But look at what else there is! Up until the seven half-ghosts who are alive today, all of them died within two years of severe ecto-acne. And I know Vlad had that, but I never did. I wonder if it had something to do with how the powers were obtained. Maybe they got their powers and ended up really unstable."

"What else is there?" Tucker asked.

"I like this one," Danny said. "All half-ghosts are, for some unknown reason, able to control one element out of the following list, which could be incomplete if there are others that simply haven't surfaced: earth, water, wind, fire, ice, electricity, metal, and plant matter. A woman whose name is unpronounceable got the power to control plant matter but was pursued and… um, destroyed by minions of the plant ghost Undergrowth, who sensed a challenge to his domain. It also says here that if a half-ghost has contact with extreme forces of elements, those elements will leave traces of control, though unstable and difficult to handle, often regulated by emotion. Like when Vortex gave me weather powers! That was wind, water, fire, AND electricity."

"Fire?" Tucker queried.

"I heated up a room really bad," Danny said.

"What about Wardback?" Sam questioned.

"I was wondering that, too," Danny said. "There's a whole separate chapter on him. Wardback apparently has power of unknown definition and bounds. His 'element' appears to be backwardness, but since this is crazy hard to put words to, he is left out of the half-ghost category in most literature. Which also makes sense, because he said he doesn't even know if he is half-ghost; he might just be able to mimic a human really well."

"All right, I admit, this is worth taking a look at," Sam said.

"And so is _that_!" Tucker laughed, pointing to the distance.

Danny looked around. He'd seen the entire world overtaken by a storm, seen Amity Park turned into a complete jungle, and witnessed his entire world as if he was the only one without ghost powers—but this, by far, was the weirdest thing he'd ever seen.

Star, the marginally attractive girl who often was seen orbiting around Paulina, was sitting down to eat lunch with Mikey, the extremely geeky boy who was seen stuffed in his own locker more times than not. Actually, they weren't even eating lunch. They were just staring at each other and sighing.

The entire cafeteria noticed almost instantly. Everybody in the room was staring at Star and Mikey, but they were so entranced by each other that they didn't care. And then, they leaned over the table towards each other and kissed.

The collective gasp echoed several times around the walls. Even the lunch lady dropped her ladle and stared in disbelief.

Mikey and Star put a bite of food in their mouths, and then continued to gaze into each others' eyes, and sighed again.

"What on Earth happened there?" Tucker asked. "Did he do her math homework for the rest of high school or something?"

"Hey, sometimes it just happens without warning," Sam said.

"Not to me," Tucker said, his shoulders slumping.

"Cheer up," Danny said. "If it helps, I could overshadow a girl and have her schedule a date with you."

"Not funny, Danny," Tucker said, and he put his arms on the table and put his head face-down on them. "This table smells funky. I hope nobody threw up on it."

"And it's comments like that which scare away all chances of romance," Sam said, smiling.

Paulina walked by them towards the popular table, but suddenly stopped when she saw Tucker with his head on the table. Her eyes widened a little bit, and to Danny and Sam's complete and utter shock, she sat down right next to Tucker and rubbed his back.

"What's wrong, cutie pie?" she said.

"I said, not funny, Danny," Tucker sighed, his words muffled in his arm.

"Danny?" Paulina said. "Who's Danny?"

"Hey!" Danny said.

"Him?" Paulina laughed. "I'm only interested in you, Tucker."

Tucker looked up, and his eyes bugged out when he saw Danny sitting across the table, clearly not overshadowing Paulina.

"Paulina?" Tucker said.

"Yes, angel?" Paulina cooed, stroking his chin.

Tucker began to sweat. "Play it cool," he muttered to himself. Then, as if he couldn't control a spasm, he held up his PDA. He was about to shoot off some random fact about its memory space when he stopped the words in his throat.

"Ooh, that's cool," Paulina said, staring at the PDA. "You should show me closer sometime!"

"Is she toying with him?" Sam whispered to Danny. "Making fun of him?"

"I don't know," Danny said.

Dash stampeded over to the table and gawked at Paulina holding Tucker's hand. "Paulina!" he shouted. "What are you doing, fraternizing with the enemy?"

Paulina stared at Tucker's eyes. "I… I don't know," she said. "Something just came over me."

"You're not really going to bring Foley to the popular table, are you?" whined Dash.

Paulina looked over at Danny and Sam. "No," she said, turning back to Dash and smiling. "I think I'll stay here. Any friend of Tucker's is a friend of mine!" She flashed a smile at Sam.

"This is definitely faked," Sam said.

Danny frowned. "Sam… look around…"

There were at least eight more unlikely pairs suddenly rushing across the cafeteria and falling into each others' arms. Lester and Valerie rushed at each other and hugged tightly—that was the weirdest, but there were a good number of other pairs that Danny didn't know but whom he had never seen together before.

"Look at this," Danny said. "This doesn't seem… natural."

"Look at what?" Sam said with a dreamy voice. "All I can look at is _Kwan_."

"What?" Danny shouted, whipping around. Kwan was rushing towards them, and Sam leapt up and met him halfway. They stopped right in front of each other and stared, and then they both clasped each others' hands between them and smiled.

As Danny was about to overshadow Kwan and leave him in the dumpster outside the school, he got his explanation: his ghost sense went off and he felt a shiver course through him.

He darted out the door, smacking directly into Mr. Lancer's chest. "S-Sorry, Mr. Lancer. Gotta go to the bathroom—"

"Romeo and Juliet!" Mr. Lancer shouted. "What in the name of Lord Byron is going on in this room?"

"I need to be going in a different room," Danny answered and scurried around Lancer and out.

He jumped into the bathroom and transformed, then flew out, invisible. "A love ghost?" he whispered to himself. "That's a little clichéd, but all right. I wonder how many ghosts there are that I haven't met."

He flew back into the cafeteria, but remained invisible, looking around. "Where _is_ this ghost?" he muttered.

For a while, he continued to search; he ended up not needing to go to class anyway, because the rest of the school day was a complete failure. Half of the kids in the school refused to go to classes apart from their new partners, and the teachers could not force them, as hard as they tried. And even after they gave up, everybody was too obsessed with each other to even go home. Tucker and Paulina looked like Siamese twins, they were so close. Danny had to find a way to make sure he wouldn't fall under the spell, and also discover where this ghost was hiding…

The Spooktacles! He still had that invention of his father's, back home. He had to hurry and grab it before this got too out of hand… before anyone did something they'd really regret. While he was there, he could grab the Fenton Phones—if the spell was sound-based, he could avoid it. Being a ghost protected him from most spells, though.

He decided to get out quick, before he was affected, and he flew back to his home to grab the devices that would help him hunt this love ghost.

* * *

><p>He'd stealthily snuck into his room and grabbed the devices, and returned to the school, scanning every area he could think of, remaining invisible. He realized he probably looked really strange, with the Fenton Phones sticking out of his ears and the Spooktacles on his eyes. Good thing he was invisible, and good thing everyone in the area was making out too viciously to notice.<p>

He turned down a hallway and noticed, through his glasses, a soft pink glow coming from around the corner on the other end of the hall. The few couples holding each other in the hallway didn't notice the whoosh of air above them as the invisible Danny jetted off to investigate.

He reached the end of the hallway and turned, and his ghost sense went off. There was a boy, a little older than Danny, readying a bow and arrow in a pose reminiscent of Cupid. He had solid red skin and hair and was glowing pink; his wings were a pure white and he had on a purple toga. His bow, arrows, and quiver seemed to be made of swirling colors—red, white, and pink were racing along the surface of the weapon like nothing Danny had ever seen. And the tip of the bow was pointed directly at Mr. Lancer, who was having a discussion with Ms. Tetzlaff on what to do about the current situation.

Danny cleared his throat loudly, remaining invisible. Mr. Lancer and Ms. Tetzlaff looked over nervously, and then walked swiftly away from the area; the boy tossed back a mane of pure red hair and lowered his bow, then turned his head slowly, but remained completely silent. He stopped turning his head before Danny could see his face, but his ear waggled in the air slightly as he listened for Danny to speak again.

Danny took off the Spooktacles for a moment; when he did so, there was absolutely no sign of the ghost in front of him. Either the ghost had been remaining invisible this whole time, or he was naturally invisible.

"What do you think you're doing?" Danny asked, putting the Spooktacles back on so he could see.

The ghost tilted his head a little further.

"Yes, you," Danny said. "Floating in front of the gym with your bow and arrow."

"You can see me?" The ghost suddenly whipped around, revealing his face. It was an unremarkable sixteen- or seventeen-year-old boy's face, except for one thing: His eyes were clouded over white while the rest of his body and his hair were the same solid red. He appeared to be blind.

"Yeah," Danny said. "Can you… see me?"

The ghost laughed and waved a hand in front of his face. "I see nothing as you see it. But I see the lust that burns within you. I can sense where you are standing."

"Who are you, and why are you attacking us?" Danny asked.

"Attacking?" the ghost cried, pressing a hand over his heart. "Never attacking! I'm just doing what I love!" He flipped his hand around in the air and a rose bloomed from his hand, which he then twirled around in his fingers. "I am Luster. The ghost of love. Don't you find my work just lovely?" He brought the rose up to his mouth and bit off the head, chewing it delightedly.

Danny backed away in the air slightly. "Not really," Danny said. "You might scar these kids forever."

Luster smiled and flipped himself upside-down in the air; his hair turned from red to a fluorescent orange. "No. When they wake up from this spell, they'll not remember a thing. Don't you worry." He turned himself sideways, still staring at Danny, and his hair flickered to a deep violet. "I'm just keeping this up for enough time for me to enjoy myself. I do ever so love watching these foolish kids fall helplessly over each other from a lust they cannot control… falling in love with the most unlikely of people. I simply love it! Why don't you?" He turned himself sideways the other way, and his hair streaked into a pure white. "And of course, the more lovin' that's going on, the more arrows I can draw from the humans' hearts when they fall asleep." He pointed to a couple that was on the ground, sleeping in each others' arms. He descended until he was just above them, and then thrust his arms each into their chests. Both of them shrieked and woke up, thrashing in pain, until Luster ripped his arms out and their limbs fell limply to the ground; they were breathing heavily and turning pale. Luster rose back up into the air with a strand of light in each hand, which formed themselves into arrows with heart-shaped tips and deposited themselves into his quiver.

Danny fought against a gag reflex that was coming on. "That was… _horrible!_" he blurted. "Horrible and disgusting! You hurt those kids!" His fist tightened and burned with green smoke.

"It's for the greater good," Luster said. "They'll recover in a few hours or so, and they'll have helped to spread love around the world! Isn't that lovely?" He laughed and revolved in midair cartwheels. Then he stopped right-side up and tightened his own fists. His hair snapped in a nonexistent breeze and flashed into black. "And if you try to stop this magnificent undertaking, you're going to descend to their level. I see you have some feelings for the Goth girl that I paired up with the Asian jock. If you have a problem with that… well then, let's just see how much of a problem you have making love to the cacti growing in the school greenhouse."

Danny backed away. "I can see you," Danny said. "There's no sneaking up on me."

"How _are_ you seeing me, anyway?" Luster asked, stroking his chin. His hair became a shining green. "One cannot see love, and love cannot see its targets."

"Go back to the Shakespeare play you came from or I'm going to kick you into the history books," Danny growled.

With a lightning-quick move, Luster whipped out an arrow, strung it, and fired. Danny pressed himself against the ceiling to dodge.

The arrow split into five as it flew. One stayed on target, and four of them tilted slightly to the left, the right, upwards, and downwards. They spread out, covering a large area. This made Danny a little nervous; Luster didn't have to be exact when he fired.

Luster notched another arrow and fired immediately. Danny phased through the ceiling, then flew forward so that he would appear behind Luster.

He was about to phase through again when his trained senses alerted him to a presence emerging behind him. He whipped around and threw up a shield of energy as Luster shot through the floor and another arrow whistled through the air. It split into five arrows again, and when they struck the shield, they were not stopped. The arrows slowly penetrated the shield; Danny hit the floor as the arrows melted through the shield in about a second; when the arrows had passed completely through, they regained their previous rapid pace, then dissolved into the air after passing him. He phased through the floor again to escape the next array of shots.

"Wow!" came a yell from below as Danny passed into the hall. "It's Danny Phantom!"

Danny looked down and saw Dash Baxter waving at him. "Wow," Dash said. "I was going to ask you if you saw the weird stuff that's been going on in the school, but you look a little weirder. What's with the headgear?"

"Invisible ghost," Danny replied, looking around at all sides.

Dash frowned. "Aren't they supposed to be?"

Danny thought for a moment. "True," he said. "You haven't fallen in love with anyone yet?"

Dash glared. "Hey!" he said. "I'm waiting for the right person."

"No, I mean…" Danny kept glancing everywhere. "You haven't been affected by the love ghost yet."

"That's a weird way of putting it."

"There's a ghost in the school that's making everyone fall in love!" Danny yelled. "I'd get out of here if I were you!"

"Oh," Dash said. "Um… gotcha." He turned and ran.

Danny caught a glimpse of pink out of the corner of his eye, and he threw up another shield to slow any of the arrows. But Luster didn't fire, just folded his arms and tilted his head. His hair was still the jet-black color it had taken on when he got angry.

"Who was that boy who just left?" asked Luster.

"Why do you care?" Danny asked, tensing himself but letting the shield go down for now.

Luster smiled and twitched with restrained laughter.

"What's so funny?" Danny asked.

"I know something you don't know," Luster said. He turned upside down again and his hair radiated as a light yellow.

"I don't care," Danny said. "Why can't you go terrorize the Ghost Zone?"

"These people are so happy," Luster said, waving his hand and producing another rose. "Why do you say terrorize?"

"Because if you hadn't been making them fall in love, they wouldn't have chosen to fall in love with those people," Danny said. "You're forcing them against their will!"

"I'm changing their will," Luster said. "They want to be in love. They ever so do." He bit the head off the rose again and cast the thorn-studded stem aside.

"That's still not right!" Danny shouted. "You can't decide who falls in love with who."

"Nobody decides anyway," Luster said, spinning himself around in cartwheels. "It just happens. So it's just happening a little sooner!"

Danny groaned and slapped a hand against his face. "You're not going to ever understand, are you," he said. "Fine. I guess I'll have to do this the hard way." He threw his arms back and then forward, and fired an average ray of ecto-energy.

Luster righted himself to take the energy blast standing still, breathing in sharply and grinning. He didn't get knocked backwards at all; in fact, he seemed to enjoy it. He then exhaled sharply, and energy swirled out of him in a ring. He rotated his arms in full circles and then thrust them out at his sides, and the ring blasted out in all directions.

Danny turned intangible, worried about his ecto-shield not being able to stop the blast like it had failed against the arrows. But it turns out he might have wanted to go with the shield anyway… The blast hit him even though he was intangible and came close to knocking the wind out of him. He flipped over backwards in the air, and he halted himself in a fighting stance. "What the heck?"

"Oh, you thought you can put a stopper in love?" Luster said, and he giggled. "That's ridiculous. Don't you read, or watch movies?" He spun around in a midair somersault and kicked another spinning ring of energy at him. Danny formed a shield, but the ring passed directly through the shield without slowing and slammed into him again.

"What's wrong?" Luster teased. "Having as hard a time defeating me as you are deciding your feelings about the Goth girl?" He laughed. "I'll tell you what's going to happen between you and her if you like." He drifted forward.

"I know you're going to lie to me!" Danny shouted. "Get back!"

"Oh, I never lie," Luster said. "She's going to meet someone else soon… very soon. And she's going to fall… _head over heels_ for him!" He spun around in another somersault, head over heels. Then he continued to taunt. "You'll be left in a shadow, despairing, knowing you were inadequate; that others are better. I can sense your broken heart this early, you freak of nature. And shouldn't it have been obvious from the beginning that this would happen? Any feeling she had for you disappeared when you turned into this _freak!_ I'd give up forever on women if I were you. I know for a fact you won't find one!" He laughed and spun around in more circles; his hair flashed back and forth between pink and baby blue.

"I'm going to beat that story right out of you!" Danny roared.

"You don't understand the power of love yet… do you?" Luster asked, slowing to a stop in his circles and stroking his chin. "You can't strike love down with brute force. You can't possibly defeat me in combat, you puerile pseudo-ghost!"

"Don't you know me?" Danny shouted. "I'm the Halfa. I defeated Pariah Dark, the King of All Ghosts. I've even defeated the plant kingdom, and the _weather,_ for God's sake! The _weather!_"

Luster pursed his lips. "The what? The Halfa? I've never heard of you. But that's cute. Half a human, half a ghost?"

"You've never heard of me?" Danny said, a little bit insulted. He thought he was fairly well-known in the Ghost Zone.

"I haven't been around in a while," Luster said. "I was sulking."

"Sulking?" Danny asked, frowning.

"In my lair deep below the surface of the Ghost Zone," Luster explained. "I vowed to only emerge when someone with great and true love beset me. That person… did not show up, unfortunately," he said, his nostrils flaring. "Someone with horrid and false love did, seeking to use me for his own purposes. And so I decided it was time for a comeback! I came here and have just begun to spread the love."

"Why were you sulking in the first place?" Danny asked, not really intending to listen; he was trying to come up with a plan.

"Because of the vicious and inhumane crimes committed against love," Luster barked, visibly simmering. "The inexpressible grief of millions due to the love they cannot have because of the disgusting and baseless decisions of others."

"What are you talking about?" Danny asked, now actually interested.

"I refer to love between two men, or two women," Luster said. "Perfectly pure. Just as mysterious and wonderful. Spat upon by those who do not understand, or deem themselves better. Their judgment is flawed and unfounded and must vanish from this world."

Danny ground his jaw from side to side, thinking. "Love between… two men? But…"

It wasn't just Luster's hair that turned black this time. His entire body exploded into darkness, and an intense pitch-black aura radiated out of him violently. "_BUT WHAT?_" he snarled. "_YOU IMAGINE YOURSELF ABOVE IT?_"

"No, but… I don't…" Danny struggled for words; his thought process was being blocked by constant attack plans.

"I hope you are ready to encounter that class of love firsthand," Luster growled. His hands clenched, and what looked like black fire started to burn around them.

"What?" Danny asked. "I—"

Because of the intense aura of darkness, Danny almost didn't see the arrow being speedily notched, but he noticed it at the last second, as the arrow fired. He turned intangible, realizing too late what a terrible mistake it was—the arrow was bound to hit him anyway.

He was right. The arrow pierced him directly through the chest, and he doubled over in pain, falling out of the sky and hitting the ground. When he rose back up, his body was glowing slightly pink, and he floated down the hall, mindlessly in search of a certain person whom he hoped had not yet left…

* * *

><p>Dash was shaking Kwan as the latter jock was embracing Sam Manson tightly. "Buddy!" he cried. "You don't know what you're doing! It's a love ghost, I'm telling you, Danny Phantom said so! You're not really that obsessed with her. Snap out of it or I'm giving away your place at the cool table!"<p>

"Dash?"

Dash turned around and saw Danny Phantom hovering towards him. He no longer had the funky glasses on, but the little ear devices were still in.

"Danny Phantom!" Dash said. "Awesome! This is so cool that I'm totally talking to you!" He bounced up and down on his heels. "Did you lay the beatdown on that love ghost?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Danny said, lowering himself to the ground onto a bench and putting his chin in his hands. "But I really do love hearing you talk…"

"Um… What?" Dash backed up and raised an eyebrow.

"Am I making you uncomfortable?" Danny asked, suddenly all concern. "I'm sorry."

"That's okay," Dash said. "And what do you mean, you didn't know what I was talking about! You said there was a love ghost out there on the run in our school."

"All I can think about is you," Danny said, sighing with sparkling eyes.

"Oh, _no,_" Dash moaned, piecing it together. "Phantom! Dude, snap out of it! You've been hypnotized or something by that ghost!" He ran up to Danny and placed his hands on Danny's shoulders; Danny sighed contentedly and smiled widely. Dash then violently shook Danny around until Danny clutched his head dizzily.

"Are you out of it?" Dash asked.

Danny stood up and stared at Dash a little longer. "Your eyes…" he said. "I never looked at them this much before. They're really pretty."

Dash looked around at all the couples embracing tightly, and he grimaced. "Phantom," he said. "Look around at everyone!"

"Why would I look away from you?"

"Gah! Phantom! Come on! You're better than this!"

"But I don't want to be!" Danny protested.

"We have to help all these people!" Dash begged. "They're under some sort of weird spell or something! By the love ghost!"

"Dash… I think it's time I said it," Danny said, breathing heavily. "Dash, I… I think I love you."

"If you really love me, you'll do something about this!" Dash shouted.

Danny stood up. "Do what? I'll do anything!"

An idea came to Dash. "Hey, that's a good idea," he said. "Good job, ol' brain! I knew I could think of good things every once in a while."

"I think you're brilliant," Danny offered, stepping closer.

Dash stepped back again. "All right, Phantom. Let me throw this out there: _I don't love you back._" Danny's face paled and he looked absolutely shattered. "But… Um… If you help me do whatever we can to defeat this love ghost… I'll… um… I'll give you a kiss. Okay?"

Danny straightened totally up again with a flash of hope. "I'll give you the best kiss of your life," Danny pledged. "I'll do whatever it takes!"

"You've gotta beat that love ghost!" Dash said. "Come on! Then the spell will snap!" He then added under his breath, "And I won't have to follow through on that offer."

Danny's eyes turned downwards. "That… That sounds a little hard. …What if I don't come back? I can't leave you!" He grabbed the front of Dash's shirt and pulled him close in a tight hug.

Dash pried himself away. "You need to figure something out," Dash said. "And then I'll… well… I'll kiss you. Um… hard."

Danny smiled and stepped back. "I'll try," he said. "For a kiss from you… Anything. Would you like to kiss my ghost half or my human half?"

Dash had been ready to go find the ghost immediately, but that last sentence stopped him. He raised one eyebrow. "What do you… mean by that?"

Danny flashed a grin and transformed. The ring of light appeared at his waist and spread out above and below; where it swept over, it left the signature red and white shirt and blue jeans of Danny Fenton; it swept over his head and turned his eyes blue and hair white. He opened his eyes and grinned wildly at Dash. "I'm really Danny Fenton," he said, and drew himself very close again. "But don't tell anybody."

Dash stared with an open mouth, just gawking at Danny for a full fifteen seconds as Danny hugged him tightly. "N… No… N-No way! F-_FENTON?_"

"Yep," Danny said, keeping his eyes closed as he hugged Dash and sighed. "I'm only telling you because I know you'll never tell. I love you, Dash. Please… Love me back. Please!"

Dash looked around; all the other couples in the cafeteria were still preoccupied with each other. Nobody else had seen the transformation.

"That… makes so much sense," he realized, whispering his revelations in case there was anyone else paying attention. "You kept hitting on Paulina. And you told her to go out with Danny Fenton. And then—when the ghost pirate ship came—Danny Phantom appeared right as Fenton left! Dude… You're…" He bit his lip. "Fenton, you're a freaking _superhero_. And nobody knew…" He choked on his last couple words: "You've been… helping us from the sidelines for so long. And I've been so…" He bit his lip and looked down at the black-haired teen still clutching him tightly.

"None of that matters to me, Dash," Danny said. "I love you."

"You said that already," Dash murmured. "My God… Fenton…" He shook his head. "No. We have to focus on taking down this ghost, whoever it is."

"His name is Luster," Danny said, miraculously peeling his arms away from Dash. "And if it means this much to you… I'll do it. I will."

"Good," Dash said. "Thank you. What do you know about him?"

Danny's head felt extremely clear, having lifted that load on his newfound love; his mind spun like a well-oiled machine. "He can't be beaten by brute force," he relayed. "But I have a book with me that has a bunch of information on a lot of different ghosts. I could go to my locker and get it… We'll see if there's anything in there."

"Awesome, Fenton," Dash said. "Perfect." He watched Danny transform back into his ghostly alter-ego, and he flew off through the wall towards where his locker was located.

Dash sighed and sat down. This was too much to comprehend. How was this possible? How did Fenton get superpowers, anyway? His brain was specialized on finding someone to pass a football to, not comprehending that the nerd he whaled on daily was a superhero who now needed his help to catch an elusive love ghost.

Danny flew back into the cafeteria holding the weird glasses from earlier along with a thick book. He landed next to Dash on the bench and laid out the book. "Here," he said, transforming back into his human self.

Dash twitched and looked around nervously. No one else was paying attention, again. "Fenton, you need to stop doing that," he whispered. "Somebody might see you one of these times!"

The blue eyes never drifted from Dash's face, but they widened. "There are other people in this room…?"

Dash groaned and rolled his eyes. If this had been happening with normal Danny Fenton, without him knowing Danny's secret, he probably would have taken this opportunity to tell Fenton to cross-dress, or put on a dog outfit or something, and then take pictures to put in the yearbook. But he was stunned to think about this… Fenton had put up with this abuse most days, yet he had even saved Dash's life! Despite how horrible he was to Fenton all the time, the kid still did everything he could to help him… and everyone else, of course.

Danny smiled at how close he was to Dash, and then started flipping through the book. "Look," he said, pointing to the list of known half-ghosts. "There's my name! I'm in this book. Isn't that awesome?"

Dash stared at the name next to Danny's. "_Vlad Masters?_" he gawked. "That can't be referring to the mayor!"

"Oh, it is," Danny said. "He's a half-ghost too. He's my sworn archenemy."

"Wow," Dash said. "Are you serious?"

"That's why he ran for mayor," Danny said. "To make my life miserable. And he almost succeeded, but I ruined his approval ratings by acting like he hit me with the ecto-gun blast."

Dash blinked several times, staring at Danny. "I never knew how much was going on," he said.

"Let's hurry up and find something so we can get to the kissing," Danny said, winking at Dash. Dash attempted a smile back.

Danny flipped to the end of the book, looking for a glossary of some sort. He found nothing, so he flipped to the front and the table of contents. Pages 304 to 977 had information on some of the Ghost Zone's more notable ghosts, so he flipped to 304.

Advancing through the pages, he found some familiar names and some unfamiliar names. _Aarosch. Aethri. Allistra. Amorpho. Aragon. Axander._ They all began with the letter "A…" Perhaps they were alphabetized.

Danny flipped a large chunk of pages. _Riptide._ Too far forward. He flipped back; _Hotep-Ra._ He flipped back a few pages to glance at Hemozoa out of curiosity, settling a question that had been raised in his mind by the Observants a while back when they referred to her as the "Ghost Queen." She was, indeed, the Ghost Queen at one point, wedded to Pariah Dark and possibly the only ghost who, by herself, rivaled Pariah's power—but only in the human world, where flesh and blood were abundant. Elsewhere, she seemed to be fairly helpless, which was why defeating her was so easy in her castle past the Zoan Wall in the Ghost Zone.

He flipped forward a sizable chunk, and finally was around where he wanted to be. _Loki. Lomora. Loucziel. Lumandrace._ And finally, _Luster._

There were no pictures like there were on some of the others. A little side note under the name Luster read, _This ghost is invisible to the naked eye, appearing only to the truest of couples—the love of which must be ceremonially bonded._

Danny pointed. "Wow," he said. "I bet I could see him if we got married right now."

A groan followed from Dash. "Just keep reading."

"Can do," Danny said cheerily. He scanned the pages, looking for something that might help him defeat Luster so that he could celebrate his victory with Dash.

The book listed each ghost's known powers. _In addition to normal ghost abilities: Not affected by physical blows. Through some unknown means, induces love in whomever he chooses (and making the target love whomever he chooses). Not much information is available on this ghost._

_Luster is also hindered by none of the following: Ecto-shields. Ghost shields. Ghost power neutralizers. Ghost-seeking weapons. Advanced tracking devices can locate his position, but his general physical traits are entirely unknown, if they exist at all._

_Luster seems to draw more power from those people he casts his spell on: when they fall asleep, something occurs that gives him power, and the victim is left in a highly weakened state for several hours. When victims are finally awakened and released from the spell, they forget all that has happened while Luster was in control._

"Look at that," Danny said, proudly. "I saw that happen; I know what that is. He pulls more of his love arrows out of their hearts when they fall asleep."

"That's good to know," Dash said. "I could try to do something to keep everyone awake while you fight him."

_Observations have suggested that Luster is blind, and can only sense a presence by the lusts that burn within their hearts. Masking these inner desires may be the key to avoiding detection and defeating him._

"That's got to be it!" Danny exclaimed, pointing to the line. "That's how we'll do it!"

Dash peered at the description. "That's… interesting… How do we mask your inner desires, then?"

"Maybe we could set up an attacking robot," Danny said.

"Keep reading," Dash said.

Danny scanned the next few lines; it was mainly about historical events which had been influenced by Luster. There was section that lasted four pages about a man named Sextus Tarquinius, son of a Roman king, and his sudden intense love for a woman named Lucretia, the events of which led to the overthrow of the Roman monarchy and the establishment of the Roman Republic. It looked fairly interesting, but he'd look over it later. He continued to scan the book, and finally, he discovered something that could be the deciding factor in their battle.

_Two reports have been submitted, the validity of which is unknown, claiming that neither Luster's vision nor his physical form are able to pass through water, and that water weakens him, but fire strengthens him. These reports do match the observations that Luster's abilities have not yet been witnessed in the rain in the human world._

Water? Danny read the line twice more to make sure, and then pointed it out to Dash. Dash nodded. "That's excellent," he said. "Good find, Fenton. Now how do we get you covered in water?"

"I might have an idea," Danny said. "I can conjure ice with my ghostly energy. And the ice is made up of water… so I could probably seal Luster into one room if I was able to use my ice for long enough."

"And I have an idea, too," Dash said. "I think we might be able to do this if you can find him again."

"I'll start looking right now," Danny said, sliding on the Spooktacles and grinning wildly, transforming back into Danny Phantom. Good thing everyone else continued to ignore him…

* * *

><p>"Dash," Danny breathed as they rounded the bend, bringing them to the hall by the main entrance. It was one of the few places in school where there were no couples strewn along the floor. "I see his aura. He's approaching us, coming around the corner."<p>

Dash nodded and stood completely still.

Luster floated into sight holding another rose and spun down the hallway. "How's the new couple?" he cooed. "Aren't you tired? I think you should take a rest, boys…"

"Not a chance," Danny said, pointing at Luster. "You can't see me pointing at you, but I am, because I'm yelling, _'You're going down!'"_

Luster frowned. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Should I have shot the other one, too? But it's even more fun when one of you is completely bewildered. …You're not lovey-dovey enough to get out of my way, huh. But I bet with another shot, you will be!"

He strung his bow with extreme agility and fired. Danny hit the floor and yelled, "Dash! Now's the time!"

Dash threw a vial of highly flammable chemicals from the chemistry lab, and it smashed under Luster's feet. On contact with air, the chemicals burst into flame and spread along the floor and to the walls. Luster laughed and raised his hands. "The burning passions of love cannot be doused by fire," he said, holding up his hands and absorbing energy from the fire. "You're making me stronger, you idiots!" He clenched his fists, and the fire spread, consuming more and more of the hallway.

"I think you're wrong about that one," Danny said. "You see, in the lengthy period of time you've been out of the human world, we've had a couple new inventions. One of my new favorites: the smoke alarm and sprinkler system!"

A piercing noise exploded throughout the school; Luster slapped hands against his ears and doubled over as if sick to his stomach, scowling. The fire alarm message went off, reminding everyone to get out of the school calmly and in an orderly fashion, and to not use the elevators; then the sprinkler system activated in response to the smoke, and water poured down from the metal devices on the ceiling. In addition to the water raining down on him, which should theoretically weaken him greatly, it also produced an ear-splitting sound that woke every sleeping couple in the school, leaving Luster unable to refill his quiver.

Luster twitched and convulsed in the air, howling. Danny held his hands in front of him and discharged a large blast of icy power, which struck Luster straight-on, as he was caught unawares. Luster's arms were frozen around his waist and he fell to the ground; the ice block shattered. Danny then blew an icy wind at the flames, which made them retreat and dissipate, but froze Luster mostly solid to the ground.

Danny flew up to Luster with the Fenton Thermos at the ready. "Say goodbye, little love bug," he said, a little too giddy in his victory due to the reward of kissing Dash that came next. His excitement made him careless, and as he prepared to shoot the Thermos, Luster smashed his icy bonds. The love ghost leapt up, pounced behind Danny, then grabbed all five remaining arrows from his quiver and stabbed them with a snarl into Danny's back with his hands, not even bothering to shoot them from his bow.

Danny screamed and his eyes nearly popped out, but then he swiveled around and saw nothing but Dash. Luster hit the ground, completely enervated with no energy or arrows remaining. He laughed bitterly and weakly and started to limp very slowly towards the door that led to the outside.

Danny, his hair and clothes soaked, threw off the Spooktacles and the Fenton Phones and lunged for Dash, knocking him down and to the floor. He lay on top of the bigger boy, focused on nothing but Dash's face, and he leaned in for a kiss. Dash tried to shove Danny's head aside, but Danny grabbed Dash's arms and phased them into the floor, leaving them stuck there so he had free access; he pressed his lips hard against Dash's and hooked his hands behind the jock's head.

Dash kicked his legs, but Danny turned his back half intangible and continued to kiss fiercely. A strange warmth was spreading through Dash's body—a sensation he had not expected—and when Danny passed his fingers through Dash's hair, he shivered all the way down and relaxed slightly.

Danny opened his lips and pressed his tongue gently between Dash's lips, sneaking it slightly through, and then closed his lips again, repeating the process until Dash suddenly took on the same actions. Danny sighed and smiled contentedly as his lips brushed continuously against Dash's and his hands stroked the back of Dash's head.

Dash regained full awareness a second later, realizing what was happening and realizing that he needed to get Danny off of him so he could find Luster. While still vaguely opening and closing his mouth to Danny's will, he strained against the floor that his hands were stuck under. His brute strength and physical training finally paid off for something other than football—his hands, buried shallowly in the ground, ripped up the floor tiles and shoved Danny off of him and into the wall. Danny held his head and then leaped back, but Dash ran and grabbed the Fenton Thermos.

He looked up, and something amazing happened. Suddenly, Luster came into his view, looking exactly as Danny had described him, with his red skin and shifty hair, his pure white wings and purple tunic. But how was this possible? Luster was invisible, and could only be seen—

He could only be seen by couples who had sealed their love with a ceremony. Did it have to be marriage? That kiss—did that serve as the ceremony that allowed him to see Luster? Even if Dash didn't consider himself in love?

It didn't matter. The question was, how was he to beat the ghost that he could now see? He was holding a thermos. He had seen Danny point it at Luster—what was it supposed to do, fire soup at the ghost? But he had treated the thermos part like it was going to be the end of the battle. He ripped the top off and dodged Danny just like he dodged tackles in his games. Then he pointed it at the retreating Luster, and some other force took over.

A blue-white jet of energy burst out of the end of the thermos and wrapped itself around the dripping-wet boy ghost. Luster looked back with a shout as he was sucked towards Dash.

Danny tackled the jock again, slamming him into a seated position against the lockers, and leaned in again just as Luster disappeared into the Fenton Thermos, which rolled against the wall. While his face was still unoccupied, Dash glanced at the thermos and grabbed it, stuffing the cap he was still holding onto the top. He looked up at Danny, whose eyes suddenly became unfocused. The ghost boy collapsed wearily on top of Dash and transformed back into his human form, falling asleep with his head on Dash's shoulder.

Dash smiled, a little bit at the victory and a little bit about the discovery he'd made. The dark-haired boy resting and breathing slowly on top of him was a half-ghost, protecting his friends and neighbors from a constant invasion of malevolent otherworldly creatures, sacrificing his time, health, and grades to combat them.

It was inspiring. Dash stared at Danny's head and without really thinking about what he was doing, he put his hand on Danny's head and let his fingers run through the boy's hair. He took his hand away when he came back to his senses, and stared at Danny, wondering what it was that had caused Luster to choose _him_ of all the people Danny could have loved.

According to what Danny had said during their planning sessions, no one would remember any of this when they woke up. It was just as well that Danny didn't remember his violent assault on Dash's mouth.

Dash wished that _he'd_ forgotten it, too—partly because he saw himself as straight, but partly because he was confused about how to feel. He would take some time to think about it by himself, and he didn't have to worry about anyone else knowing about it or offering help. He'd figure this one out on his own. Why didn't he throw Danny off sooner? He couldn't remember _enjoying_ it—he was pretty sure he didn't—but why else would he have hesitated and reciprocated as much as he did?

Dash was enjoying the warmth of the shared body heat, but it was time to get Fenton off of him before anyone came along. He slid Danny to the side, laying him on his back with his head against the wall, and then took the Fenton Thermos. It would have to go somewhere where Luster wouldn't escape anytime soon… Or, better yet… He left the thermos in Danny's hands, knowing that Danny would probably know what to do with it better than he would.

He left the school and walked to his own house, mulling over the events that had recently taken place. At some point, Danny would probably figure out that Dash knew his secret. But Dash didn't want to tell Danny yet that he knew… because that brought up the question of how he knew, and that in turn brought up several questions about himself that he wanted to answer first.

* * *

><p>Danny, Sam, and Tucker were eating lunch together the next day and discussing the weird black-out that everyone had. Not a single person in the school remembered anything; it seemed that all of them, even the teachers, had been under some sort of spell for the entire second half of the school day.<p>

"I vaguely remember fighting a ghost beforehand," Danny said, pressing his thumbs against his temples to try and remember. "I'm pretty sure I discovered the reason that all of you were blacking out… but I just can't remember. And I'm a little scared to find out what's in the Fenton Thermos that I had in my hand when I woke up."

"Do you remember anything in specific?" Sam said. "Anything at all? A person, a sentence you said? Anything?" She shook her head. "I don't. Everything's completely fuzzy for me; I can't grasp onto a strand of _any_ memory from yesterday's school day after lunch."

Danny scratched his hairline next to his ears and sighed.

"I found your book," Sam said. "I think I was the first to stumble across it, thankfully; no one else saw it. It was lying on a cafeteria table, opened to a page on a ghost named Luster."

"Luster?" Danny sat up straight. "That kind of rings a bell." He growled at the sky. "WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER?"

"Calm down, Danny," Sam said. "We'll go through that section of the book later and see if it holds any clues."

Paulina walked past them, the first member in a train that included all the popular kids. Dash was at the back. Paulina was talking to Star, and as they passed the three friends, they heard her ask Star, "Why do I feel like I know what geek tastes like?"

Tucker frowned. "Why do I feel like I know what everything I've ever wanted tastes like?"

Dash was talking to Kwan, but as he passed Danny, he smiled slightly in Danny's direction instead of dumping food on him like usual.

"I'm even more confused by that," Danny said, watching Dash sit down. "What happened yesterday?"

"Must've been some party," Tucker answered, shrugging.

Dash glanced sideways at Danny as he sat down to eat, then returned to his meal, trying to act as normal as possible. He knew Danny's secret, but he wasn't going to tell a soul.

Danny Fenton was Danny Phantom. He had been silently helping all of them from the sidelines for a long, long time, while keeping it a secret. So Dash would silently help Danny from the sidelines, and he would keep it a secret, too. He wasn't used to helping from the sidelines, being the star quarterback of Casper High, but he would try as hard as he could, like Danny Phantom had tried to get rid of all the ghosts in the school and town.

First, he had placed the Fenton Thermos in Danny's hands, so that he would have Luster when he woke up and could dispose of him however Danny Phantom usually took care of the ghosts. Then, he returned the ghost book to Sam Manson's table while she still slept and opened it up to a page on Luster, so that she would notice and tell Danny to look at the page; then they would figure out what had happened. Future missions to help Danny Phantom would probably be much less easy; they might even be dangerous. But nobody said it would be easy! He felt, though, like he would probably grow to love it. His decision to be Danny Phantom's secret sidekick, secret even from Danny Phantom, was easy—it was the only easy part of the whole deal.

If only deciding his deeper feelings was as easy…

-THE END-


	5. Episode 56: Duplicity City

EPISODE 56—DUPLICITY CITY

Sam and Tucker were sitting in Danny's house, listening to their best friend explain a critical event of which they had no memory.

"Some of it just randomly came to me," Danny said. "When I read about Luster and his ghost powers, suddenly, I remembered a little bit of what happened before my blackout. I remember going back to my house and getting the Spooktacles and the Fenton Phones… I found those in my backpack afterwards. And I remember finding him. Luster, I mean."

"I'm still completely blank on everything," Sam said, and Tucker nodded. "But go on."

"I remember talking to him, before he got really angry, then I blacked out and the next thing I knew, I woke up in the hall holding a thermos, which I'm assuming contains him." He scratched the top of his head, trying to think exactly how Luster had phrased the sentences he remembered. "Luster said… I don't remember much but I remember a few things. I remember Luster said… he had been sulking… and then he said, to the best of my memory: 'I vowed only to emerge when someone with true love beset me. That person didn't show up, unfortunately. Someone with false love did, wanting to use me for his own purposes.' That may not be exact, but you get it."

"What do you think that means?" Tucker asked.

"I think I know what Danny's getting at," Sam said. "The Fenton Ghost Portal has had its security tightened—it wouldn't have been easy for a ghost to escape through there. And Luster showed up first in Amity Park, so he must have come through a portal here—and the only other one that we know of is Vlad's. You think Vlad tried to control Luster to get your mom?" Her eye twitched. "That's so weird."

"It is," Danny sighed, "but that's what I'm thinking. Although it sickens me intensely, I have to think that's what happened. And it makes sense."

"That dude's got issues," Tucker said.

"I was asking myself why he'd been quiet lately. Figures he was looking for some method of controlling my mom's mind. And remember when I came across him breeding Blood Blossoms? I wonder if he was trying to find something that could harm Luster, since he's apparently not easily battled." He frowned. "I wonder how I got him. If he really is in the thermos, that is. But he hasn't shown his face anywhere else… I'm pretty sure he's in here, because there wasn't anything in here before, but I can feel it rattling sometimes."

There was a brief silence as Danny took the Fenton Thermos out of his backpack and placed it on the living room table between them. Tucker and Sam looked at it with curiosity; almost on cue, it wiggled slightly and then spun in small circles to a stop.

"Where do you think I should dump him?" Danny asked. "Behind the Zoan Wall? I don't know if that will even stop him…"

As Danny was finishing his sentence, there was a knock on the door. Danny stowed the thermos back in his backpack in case it was Vlad—he didn't want Vlad to know Danny had Luster in containment.

"You expecting anyone at your house at 8:45 on a Sunday night?" Sam asked, glancing at the hallway behind her. The knocks came again, louder and longer this time; it was either urgency or impatience.

"No," Danny said. "I'll go see who it is." More knocks followed even louder.

He strolled down to the door; Jazz was the first there, but he and his parents followed shortly. Jazz opened the door and almost got hit as the person's fist, which was still trying to knock, swung inwards; whoever it was almost fell into the house. Jazz smiled with some warmth but mostly confusion. "Hello, Mr. Lancer!" she said.

"Hello, Jasmine," came Mr. Lancer's voice.

"What's wrong?" Maddie asked, glancing at Danny. "You sounded urgent. Is it something about Danny's grade?"

"Of course not," Mr. Lancer said. He sounded almost nervous. "This is something else. More important."

Danny paled. What had he done this time? Was there destruction of school property that he was being blamed for? Or worse… had one of the teachers seen something? Seen him transform, or guessed his secret?

Sam and Tucker ran in behind him just as Mr. Lancer started to speak again.

"You know that Amity Park is the vista of a lot of ghost activity, yes?"

The Fentons all stared at him blankly. Firstly, the word "vista" didn't seem to fit that sentence very well, and Lancer was an English teacher. Secondly, there were CONSTANT ghost attacks in Amity Park. It was probably the thing their town was best known for. So why would he have asked the biggest ghost fanatics in Amity Park if they knew that their town was known for its ghost activity?

And thirdly, for the kids in the household, Mr. Lancer had just described that this was something _extremely important,_ most likely having to do with Danny, and then started the conversation by talking about ghosts. Danny was beginning to get very scared that Lancer knew his secret and was about to tell Danny's parents. Readying himself for this possible scenario, Danny prepared to duck out of sight if necessary to go ghost and overshadow Lancer.

"Yes, of course. That was obvious. I apologize. Well, I'd like to ask you two something."

"Us?" Maddie and Jack said together.

"Yes. A favor, if you would…"

Danny relaxed a little bit. It didn't seem like Lancer knew about his ghost powers. He was asking them a favor. Maybe to chaperone a field trip? In case there were ghost attacks? But his parents—well, his dad—usually caused more damage than good.

"We have an exchange student coming from England," Mr. Lancer said. "He wanted to come to Casper High as a freshman. His parents are very well-versed in ghost studies, and he would like to study in the most famous town in the world for ghost activity. He's requested to stay with a family that is also active in ghost studies. Would you be willing to take him in for the rest of the school year, starting tomorrow?"

"A ghost hunting prodigy? Absolutely!" Jack bellowed.

"Now, wait a minute, Jack," Maddie said, putting her hands on his arm to calm him down. "This is very sudden and unexpected. And it's a very long-term deal, isn't it? I don't know if we should accept so immediately."

Lancer bit his bottom lip. "Well… you see… he is arriving tomorrow morning in time for the first class of the day, and, well… he'll have nowhere to go after school… And—oh, of course! I don't understand how I could have neglected to mention this bit of information. He has studied his family tree extensively and has discovered that his great-great-great-great…" He frowned. "Well, I forget how many greats. But one of his ancestors had two children, one of which sailed to America in the 1600s. That man's name was John Fenton Nightingale. The boy I am referring to is named Noah Nightingale. He believes he's a long-lost cousin of this family."

"Really?" Danny said.

Mr. Lancer peered through the door and caught sight of Danny. "Yes, really. Isn't that neat?"

"Related to us?" Jack roared. "Maddie, he's kin! No wonder he's going for his PhD in ghosts! He'll fit right into the family!"

"I'd like to see this family lineage," Maddie said, nodding curiously.

Mr. Lancer opened his mouth to say something, but Danny interrupted when he paused. "Mom? I looked up our family tree once. I remember seeing John Fenton Nightingale."

"Really?" Maddie said, smiling. "How interesting!"

"Noah has his own money for groceries and entertainment," Mr. Lancer added. "If you were worried he'd be a financial burden, don't worry about that."

Maddie turned to Danny. "What do you think, sweetie? This is your decision, too. Would you be willing to share your room with this Noah boy?"

Danny grinned wildly—this had him really happy. "Of course!" Danny said. "I've kind of always wanted a brother!"

Sam and Tucker looked at him a little nervously. "Danny, what if you need to… you know…" Sam whispered. "Aren't you taking a risk that he'd find out?"

"I can deal," Danny whispered back. "My parents haven't found out yet, have they?"

Maddie turned to Mr. Lancer and nodded once again. "All right," she said. "We'll take Noah in for the school year. If he's really into ghost studies, he can help us in the lab, I suppose."

"I'm certain he'd be exhilarated to get that opportunity," Mr. Lancer said. "Thank you for accepting this request. I'm very sorry to have troubled you so late with this news—if I had gotten it earlier, I certainly would have let you know earlier."

His parents smiled and waved as Mr. Lancer left, and then Maddie grimaced as the door closed. Jack, however, was beaming.

"Think!" he said, putting his hands to his hips; his elbows almost hit the walls on either side. "Another little ectophile! Studying ghosts beside his long-lost uncle eight times removed!"

"I think that's very remarkable," Maddie said. "I wonder if he discovered his relation to us before or after his decision to come here. You'll have to remember to ask him in school tomorrow, Danny. Or we could ask him when you bring him home."

"I hope he has a really thick British accent," Tucker said. "I love British accents."

"I wonder what he'll like to do in his free time," Danny said.

"Danny," Sam said, putting a hand on her forehead like she had a headache. She walked back into the living room with them, and when they sat down, she started talking again. "This is really cool that you're going to get to meet a long-lost cousin or whatever relation he is to you. But you have to think long-term. What if he starts getting used to our company, and wants to hang out with us a lot? We can't exactly tell him that we hunt ghosts. We'll be so restricted from our usual rounds if he's hanging around with us. Our whole mojo is going to get thrown way out of whack!"

"I'd be taking this a lot more seriously if that last sentence wasn't so funny-sounding," Tucker laughed.

Sam wasn't laughing, she looked deadly serious. "Danny," she said calmly. "I don't know if we're going to keep being able to do this with you. When Jazz didn't know, it was hard enough. When she found out and started trying to help, it was even more of a disaster. Your parents still don't know and it's hard around them. Now you've got another ghost hunter coming who is probably going to be gunning for the ghost blood of Danny Phantom in an hour after meeting your parents. And with someone living in your room with you, like a brother, it is going to be so, so hard for you to get out of the way and transform when you're needed. I don't know how this is going to work."

"Sam," Danny said, placing a hand on her shoulder. She threw it off, and his face fell. "Relax. It'll be fine; we'll find some way around everything. We always do."

Sam shook her head and curled her hands into fists.

"And we can't exactly refuse him," Danny said. "He's family, and we already said we'd take him in. What do you expect me to do?"

"I expected you to have thought about _us_ for a little bit, Danny!" Sam shouted.

Danny and Tucker were stunned; she did not raise her voice often at them. Almost never, in fact, except when Tucker set up a protest rally against her vegetarian menu and when Danny broke his promise to see the movie with her. Now, she looked like she was about to tear off a large chunk of the wall and devour it. She snorted through her nose like a bull and stomped out of the room, out the door, and slammed it, not looking back.

"What just happened?" Danny asked, a little dazed.

"Sam just blew up," Tucker responded, just as stupefied.

"She never blows up, though," Danny said. "Why was she so angry this time?"

Tucker patted his shoulder and muttered, "Might be that time of month."

"Tucker!" Danny shouted as his friend laughed. "There were a lot of things you could have said that would have made me feel better. That wasn't one of them."

"I'm sure she'll be over it by school tomorrow," Tucker said, rising up and walking towards the door. "Have a good night, dude."

* * *

><p>As it turns out, Sam was not over it the next morning. She trudged into class a little late, and was not happy to notice that the only open seats were within five feet of Danny. She took the seat that was two desks to the left of him, with an empty desk between them, and she didn't look at him while she got out her textbooks.<p>

Danny was so focused on her for a while that he didn't even notice the boy standing in the front, talking to Mr. Lancer. He only noticed when Mr. Lancer rose up and cleared his throat to talk to the rest of the class. Tucker looked up expectantly and raised an eyebrow. Sam looked up grouchily, but when she saw the highly attractive boy being introduced, her jaw dropped and all cloudiness faded from her expression.

"Hello, class," Mr. Lancer said. "We have a new student coming in today for the rest of the school year. He's an exchange student from England, and his name is Noah—I'm sorry, what was it again?"

"Noah Nightingale," the boy said softly but in a heavy British accent. Sam swooned instantly.

Noah's eyes were an intense neon green, unlike anything Danny had ever seen. They looked even brighter than Danny's eyes when he was in ghost form. His hair was intensely blond, almost white, and it fell neatly along his brow and halfway down his neck. He had a look that made him seem like he'd be the type of guy who looks sixteen when he's twenty and twenty when he's thirty. He clenched a brown baseball cap in his hand, and crumpled it in his hands nervously as he tucked his bottom lip under his top.

Some people's skin was uneven on their face, or looked slightly loose along the jaw line, or was pocked with acne or uneven color. Noah's skin was perfectly smooth, very fair, and was filling Sam's eyes as she continuously drank in his figure.

Looking around, Danny noted that every girl in the room was mesmerized by Noah's incredibly attractive boyish looks; some were digging their nails into the desk and some were just plain staring with open mouths. Even the guys were mostly staring, likely due to jealousy from the attention he was getting from the ladies. Dash seemed impressed and then looked around at all the girls staring at Noah, his eyes eventually settling on Sam—or was it Danny he was staring at?

Danny looked back at Noah as Mr. Lancer began speaking again. "I trust you will all be very welcoming and civil to Noah," he said almost threateningly, staring at Dash and Kwan, "as you are representing not just our school, but our entire country. I will not hesitate to come to Noah's defense if anyone comes to him on _off_ense. That being said, Noah, enjoy your stay. It seems that the only open desk is next to Danny Fenton, who you'll be staying with anyway; why don't you sit there."

Paulina leaned to her left and shoved Star with both arms out of Star's desk, and then shouted, "Oh Noah, there's a desk here too!"

Noah smiled sheepishly as Star leapt up and tackled Paulina out of her desk. "No, there's one here!" Star shouted.

Noah edged away sideways from the cat-fighting popular girls and then walked to the open desk between Danny and Sam. He looked over to his right and smiled. "Hello, Danny," he said, holding out his hand. "I'm your long-lost relative, Noah Nightingale!" He flashed an easy grin that showed a little bit of both rows of very white and very straight teeth.

Danny took his hand and shook it. "Hey," he said. "I'm _your_ long-lost relative, Danny Phan—FENTON. Danny Fenton." His eye twitched, and then so did his body. "But you knew that already ah-ha-_ha!_" He clenched his mouth shut, and smiled shakily.

Noah smiled back, then turned and tapped on the shoulder of the boy in front of him; it was Eric, one of the members of the football team. "Hello," he said in his amazing British accent, introducing himself again. "I'm Noah Nightingale. What's your name?"

"Eric Westing," the guy said, shaking his hand and smiling. "Nice to meet you!"

Noah introduced himself to the girl behind him, again shaking hands. She just about melted when he made eye contact with her, and when he turned, she raised the hand that had shaken Noah's up to her face and stared at it.

Then Noah turned to his left and held out his hand to Sam. "Hi," he said. "What's your name?"

Sam fought back a shiver and shook his hand. "I'm… Wes," she said dreamily.

"Wes?" Noah said, blinking. "That's a nice name. Is it short for something?"

"I meant Sam!" she blurted, laughing. "Sorry. I'm Sam Manson. And you're Noah. Noah Nightingale! Um… Right?"

"Yeah," Noah said. "You're Danny's friend, right?"

Sam looked a little taken aback. "Um… Why'd you ask that?"

"Well, you were at his house," Noah said. He blinked again. "Mr. Lancer told me I'd probably be seeing a lot of you if I was hanging around with Danny."

"Yeah," Sam said. "I'm totally Danny's friend. I hang out with him all the time so I guess we will be seeing each other a lot!"

"Problem solved," Tucker whispered to Danny.

Danny was amazed at the way the girls absolutely dissolved over Noah. He did have to admit, Noah probably was very attractive to girls.

Noah had been looking nervous before Sam said she was Danny's friend. Danny had been wondering why, but now it was clear—Noah gave Sam a smile with his eyes half-closed and then turned away, his pale skin turning the slightest shade darker at the cheeks. If Noah was flattered by every girl in the room staring at him, he didn't show it. But he certainly reacted to Sam's longing looks… Danny was beginning to suspect that, if Noah was taking to anyone in the room already, he was taking to Sam. If he was taking to her because he _liked_ her… then Danny had a bit of a problem with him already.

But Noah was way too likable to find anything wrong with. Danny had initially worried that if Noah started getting closer to Sam, it would mean Danny would start acting angrily towards the new kid; but for some reason, watching Sam and Noah flirt in the desks next to him was sort of fun, and he felt… happy… for Sam. And if it wasn't for Noah, Sam wouldn't be on Danny's good side anyway.

Sam and Danny had been really good friends for a really long time. And that was what they were—really good friends. If Sam liked Noah, and Noah liked Sam, good for them. He cheered it on, actually, to keep Sam happy.

In addition, he didn't even know if Noah liked her—maybe he just wanted to be really good friends with her, in part because Danny was friends with her.

He didn't even notice the class going by very much; it was a surprise when the bell rang what seemed like a short time later. He packed up his stuff and moved to his next class. As it turned out, Noah was in all of his classes; he seemed to have based his schedule off of Danny's.

Apparently, he was a math nerd. And a science geek. And an English freak. And a star athlete. Danny had never seen Ms. Tetzlaff so happy as when Noah ran a half mile in under two and a half minutes.

She clamped a meaty hand down on Noah's shoulder and smiled. "Kid, you just ran a half mile in two minutes and twenty-seven seconds, and you're not even choking and dying," she said. "Multiply that time by two and you'd have been at a mile in four minutes fifty-four. The world record is three minutes and forty-three seconds or so for the mile run. You need to keep running, kid; you could be in the Olympics one day!"

Noah smiled back nervously at the monstrous woman in front of him, probably hoping she wouldn't eat him. "Thanks, Ms. Tetzlaff."

Sam finished a little bit later with a three and a half minute half-mile. She brushed her hair aside slightly and smiled at him. "Is there anything you're not good at?" she asked, sitting down next to him on the bench to watch everyone else finish.

Noah wrinkled his nose. "History," he said, nodding. "History and reading maps."

* * *

><p>Danny expected an uneventful lunch period, asking Noah about English schools and discussing how Noah was enjoying his stay. Boy, was he wrong.<p>

Noah twirled his spoon around in the porridge, looking at it with a funny face. "Ick," he said, sticking his tongue slightly out. "I don't know how they managed these aesthetics, but this stuff looks like it should be eating _us._"

Danny turned to Sam and Tucker with a smile, remembering the monster he'd faced which—actually—looked a lot like today's lunch, and did indeed eat him. Only Tucker returned the knowing smile; Sam was too busy staring at the bit of tongue peeking out of Noah's mouth.

Danny jerked slightly on the lunch bench as a little bit of blue breath escaped his lips and a shiver ran through him, informing him of a ghost's presence. Sam suddenly gasped and shot upright as she continued to stare at Noah, who blinked and said, "What?"

"I gotta go to the bathroom," Danny muttered, and got out of his seat quickly.

"Wait!" Noah shouted, getting up with him. "I've been meaning to ask you to show me where the bathroom was. Can I go with you?"

Danny froze for a moment, but relief came from the most unlikely source.

Dash seemed to have been watching Danny and Noah, and unbeknownst to Danny, he'd noticed Danny's hurry to get out of the room and knew that Danny needed to get rid of Noah somehow. He walked over to the two boys and yelled, "Hey, Noah!"

"Oh, hey," Noah said. "You're Dash, right?"

"That's right," Dash said. "So, I saw you in gym today, and I was thinking something. Would you mind coming over to my table and talking with me for a minute? Preferably right now, 'cause I gotta go before lunch is over for something."

"Oh, yeah, sure!" Noah said, and walked with Dash over to the popular table, where Paulina waved brightly at him and moved over to make room. Sam stood up, still watching Noah, and slammed her hands to the table, upending all four lunch trays. Tucker nervously edged away.

Danny breathed a sigh of relief and laughed at how polite Dash seemed to be able to transform himself when necessary. He was probably going to ask Noah to join the school football team; the state tournament was coming up.

He ducked into the bathroom and transformed quickly; he slipped the Spooktacles on as well. He'd learned to carry those with him at all times; it was pretty convenient, since his ghost sense didn't tell him _where_ the ghost was. The glasses brought down his search time by a lot, because the ghost often let off a tell-tale glow that he could see from a distance through the Spooktacles.

This time, he didn't have to look far. He went back into the lunch room first, since that was where his ghost sense had gone off; he passed through the wall and ended up in the kitchen where the food was made. He found the ghostly Lunch Lady hovering above the line in the cafeteria.

The Lunch Lady made herself visible to everyone in the room and roared a mighty roar. People everywhere scattered and made themselves scarce; the majority of kids were out of the room within ten seconds, having been practiced in the art of getting the heck out of the range of ghostly fire.

Sam and Tucker stayed, of course; that was normal. But Dash and Noah stayed, too. Noah was squinting and grinning wildly. "You see that?" he shouted. "Wow! That's totally a ghost!"

"Yeah, dude," Dash said. "You want to… like… get out of here?"

Noah shook his head. "Oh, _heck_ no! I want to see what's gonna happen!"

Tucker and Sam ran over to Noah. "You have to get out of here!" Tucker shouted at Noah. "Those ghosts seriously will attack you for no reason. We're all in danger right now!"

Noah again shook his head. "This is so bloody awesome," he said softly.

"What a brave guy," Sam whispered. Tucker threw a hand to his face.

"YOU!" bellowed the Lunch Lady, pointing at Sam. "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO CHANGED THE MENU!"

Sam turned, taking her eyes off of Noah for what seemed like the first time that day. "Seriously?" she said. "You still haven't gotten over that?"

"WHAT IS THIS GARBAGE YOU ARE SERVING?" the Lunch Lady screamed at the old lady who served their food, who backed away in terror. Then the old lunch woman grabbed what looked like a bowl of boiling hot porridge and flung it at her attacker. The ghost was struck and covered in red-hot tasteless food substitute and roared fiercely in pain. She chased the elderly woman far into the kitchen until Danny showed up between them, making himself visible and pocketing the Spooktacles.

"AND YOU!" the Lunch lady howled.

"Do you ever use your inside voice?" Danny asked. He shot a blast of ice at the Lunch Lady, crashing her into the floor and freezing her there.

"IT'S DANNY PHANTOM!" Noah shouted.

Danny looked around and spotted his new friend jumping up and down in delight. Danny gave a wave hello but was smashed upside the head by a slab of meat; the Lunch Lady had defrosted.

She pounced on top of him as he fell, but he was quick with the thermos and she got too close to him. Danny uncapped the device and the Lunch Lady returned, shrieking, to the container that had encased her in Danny's first ever fight.

People were watching from the hall, and when the fight was over, they returned, chattering; the lunchroom was full again within two minutes of being emptied. Danny returned with the crowd and sat down with Sam, Tucker, and Noah; Noah was bouncing up and down with excitement from the ghost fight he'd just witnessed.

"That was _wicked!_" he said, making the sentence infinitely better with his British accent. "It was Danny Phantom! I've been studying him since he was Inviso-Bill, and I finally saw him in person! I'm hoping to meet him for real one day!"

"Really?" Danny asked, smiling a little bit. "I'm sure you'll get that chance."

"You think so?" Noah was downright giddy.

Sam nodded fiercely. "I know a couple spots where he likes to hang out," she offered. "Maybe we could go one time to try and find him."

"Really?" Noah asked, turning to her with a wide smile.

Sam was floating. "Absolutely! Just tell me whenever."

"That's so cool," Noah said.

"Just don't tell Danny's parents that you love him," Tucker informed the newbie. "They think Danny Phantom's evil just because he's a ghost."

"That's ridiculous," Noah said. "Anyone with half a brain could have seen that the whole mayor thing was a setup by the Sheriff of the Ghost Zone."

Danny was impressed now. "How'd you know that?" he asked.

"I told you, I study ghosts a ton," he said. "I know a lot about most of the ghosts that appear regularly in Amity Park, and the Wisconsin Ghost."

"The Wisconsin Ghost?" Danny asked, now very interested.

"Yeah," Noah said, smiling. "I assumed you wouldn't really know too much about it; it's in Wisconsin, after all. But there are four ghosts that have made multiple appearances in Wisconsin. There's the Lake Michigan Ghost, a water-controlling ghost self-named Riptide, who terrorized the coast for a few weeks several years ago before government agents captured him and tried as best they could to cover it up. There's the Racine Wraith, who appeared in one of the largest Wisconsin cities fifteen years ago and vanished mysteriously after a month of random havoc; some people still claim it's a myth. There's the Dairy King's ghost, said to haunt the halls of the Wisconsin Dairy mansion, and then there's the Wisconsin Ghost. I think the last one is the most interesting. He's an evil ghost, no doubt about it, but his appearances have been so scarce, unpredictable, and unsystematic… Most ghosts have some greater goal in mind, but this one just doesn't seem to have any reason for his actions."

"I'm… sure there's something," Danny said.

"I'd like to find that out, too," Noah said. "My sources say the Wisconsin Ghost moved to Amity Park shortly after it became known for its ghost inhabitants; or perhaps it's just the appearance a ghost who looks like the description of the Wisconsin Ghost, and perhaps the Wisconsin Ghost doesn't even exist." He glanced at the clock. "Oh, snap, is it almost the end of lunch already? I haven't even eaten yet. Well… that's all right. I'll snack at your house if that's all right with you."

"Of course it is!"

"I'm so thrilled, I'm not even hungry," Noah said, a twinkle in his eye.

* * *

><p>Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Noah all went to Danny's house after school, to introduce Noah to the Fentons. Noah got along well with them—he seemed to get along well with everyone, even Dash—and he explained to them his passion for hunting ghosts.<p>

"I was adopted," he said. "But both of my adoptive parents… died in a terrible car accident when I was six." Maddie put her hands to her mouth and looked at him with motherly pity. "I was taken in by one of my adoptive parents' relatives. But they were really uncaring after the first few months. I only found happiness in studying, in learning things. I guess that's why I do so well in school. But when I got fed up with my parents' horrible neglect, I ran away. The police got involved, and I became friends with one of the officers. He found my birth parents for me, who were willing to take me back.

"It turned out that they had me, but didn't have the means to support a child," he went on. "They were into ghost studies, and that didn't pick up steam until recently. So they had no funding and no work for a long time. But then they had their research sponsored by the government, and they were able to take me back—my real parents."

Jazz and Maddie wiped tears from their eyes at the story. Jack got up and invited Noah to have a look at the ghost lab, an offer which Noah accepted immediately.

"So, this whole thing is looking well," Danny said.

"Yeah," Sam said, staring down at the basement.

"You can go downstairs with Noah if you want," Tucker said, noting Sam's longing looks at where Noah had disappeared.

"What? No!" Sam laughed. "No, that's fine, I'll stay up here."

"You sure you won't miss him too much?" Danny teased.

"Oh, come on," Sam said. She mocked Noah's British accent. "Don't be daft."

"You really like him, though," Tucker said.

Sam turned red. "Well, yeah, I really enjoy his company," she said. "And I'll admit, his looks are clearly unrivaled… but he's also a genuinely nice guy. Who wouldn't want to hang around with this kid?"

They passed the time discussing more about the incident of the mass black-out at the school while Noah was exploring the lab. It was a while before they heard anything from anyone who had gone downstairs; when they did, it was a loud _boom_ that rattled the walls of the house and knocked three or four picture frames off their shelves. Danny's ghost sense went off, and he looked around nervously.

Sam stood up immediately, concerned, but looked relieved when Noah came running up the stairs. "I wouldn't go down there if I were you," he said, laughing.

"Hey," Sam said. "You want to go visit that spot where I said Danny Phantom might be hanging out?"

"Danny Phantom?" Noah sneered at her—a look that none of them expected Noah's face could display—and chuckled. "Who cares about him? You're such an idiot. Why don't you shut up and go home? Nobody wants you here, anyway."

Sam stared at him, hurt. Her eyes watered. "Why would you say something like that?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know," Noah said. "Maybe because I meant it?" He walked over to Tucker and knocked his beret off, then kicked over a small table with a glass vase; the vase shattered when it struck the floor.

"What are you doing?" Danny shouted, leaping up.

"What're you going to do about it?" Noah said back nasally. He turned and walked out of the room. "What a dump heap this place is! I think I'll suffocate if I stay here any longer from the stench coming from the fat old guy down there. See ya!" The door slammed a few seconds later.

Danny stared; Tucker gawked; Sam's eyes watered. "What the heck was that?" Danny asked. "And what happened in the lab?"

"Go after him and see what's up," Tucker said. "Sam, come here." He hugged Sam tight as Sam just stammered that she didn't understand.

Danny transformed into his ghostly half and sailed out of the room. "Calm down, Juliet," he muttered, "you just met him yesterday. Now, what the heck happened, and where the heck is he…?"

He spied a figure skipping down the street joyfully, and he followed; sure enough, it was Noah. He stayed high in the sky to avoid detection, but as he approached, Noah suddenly turned around.

"Wow!" he shouted, putting a hand over his eyes to shade them so that he could see Danny better. "It's that Phantom Ghost Kid!" And he whipped out an ecto-blaster.

Before Danny could react, the blast caught him in the chest and he spiraled away through the sky. He caught his balance to see Noah running after him, laughing and aiming the weapon again. He dodged the next array of shots and then flew behind a building—but Noah kept shooting even when he was behind the building. Windows were blown out and chairs were blasted across the room as Noah continued firing; the people in the building screamed and ran everywhere. Noah finally stopped firing when the walls started to crack, and he laughed and ran back into Fenton Works.

_Sam! Tucker!_ Danny thought with a jolt, then shot as if out of a cannon back into his home. If his friends were hurt at all…

He flew into the room and didn't see any sign of Noah. He transformed back and opened his mouth to say something to Sam right as Noah walked back into the room.

Danny grabbed the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick from behind the couch and held it in a threatening pose; Sam flinched and Tucker stared at him angrily.

Noah looked at them with a genuine air of surprise. "What the bloody hell are you readying a baseball bat for inside your own house?"

Sam stood up and jabbed a finger at him. "What the 'bloody hell' did you call me an idiot for?"

Noah was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"Hello, kids!" Jack Fenton yelled, bounding into the room. "Just wanted to let you all know how much I _love_ having this new little kid here! And when I say love…" He grabbed Noah's arm and pulled him close, tousling his hair, then massaging his shoulders, then he leaned down and licked Noah's ear. Noah shouted and leapt back in absolute terror.

"If you want to come down to the lab when no one else is awake tonight, I won't stop you," Jack yelled, grinning proudly. He turned to Danny. "You can come too, Billy!" He ran down the hallway again and disappeared.

"…Billy?" Danny asked himself, then he gasped. "Oh!"

"I really, really don't feel comfortable staying here anymore," Noah said, trembling.

"No, wait, this is awesome," Danny said. "Quick! Run down to the lab with me." He brought the Anti-Creep Stick with him, grabbed Noah's arm and rushed down the stairs, against Noah's struggles.

Danny put a finger to his lips when they reached the bottom stair, and did the same for Tucker and Sam when they followed. He watched as his dad used the Fenton Ghost Weasel to clear the lab of smoke that had resulted from some explosion; his mom walked up to his dad and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey, sweetie," she said. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm leaving you."

"Eh?" Jack said, turning off the vacuum and turning towards her for a kiss. She slapped him across the face. "What in the—" Jack staggered backwards.

"Thought so," Danny said. He rushed into the room, wielding the bat, and smashed his mother in the back of the head. She fell to the ground and her form flickered, then distorted and became the shape-shifting ghost known as Amorpho. Danny's real mother came into view through the smoke in the lab.

"Whoa, Danny!" Jack yelled. "Excellent job! How'd you know?" He grabbed an ecto-blaster and raised it to aim it at the imposter; Maddie noticed and did the same.

"That's… a shape-shifting ghost?" Noah asked, delighted at both the fact that it was another ghost attack in the same day, and that Jack Fenton didn't actually lick him. "Wow! This is so exciting! Two ghost appearances in the same day! Three if you count the first one as being two ghosts!" He wandered over around the different parts of the lab, looking for the ghost again in case it appeared.

"Two ghosts? In the school?" Jack said. He and Maddie turned his gaze away from Amorpho for a moment, who used the opportunity to phase through the floor and escape laughing.

"I thought I told him never to come back here," Danny said softly to Tucker and Sam. Tucker shrugged; Sam wasn't paying attention, just being relieved that it hadn't been Noah who'd yelled at her. "And how did he get the ecto-blaster? Must've been in the confusion after the explosion."

"An ecto-blaster?" Tucker asked. "He shot at you when you followed him?"

Noah wandered back over, so Danny just nodded instead of answering. Noah was once again ecstatic about the whole experience, and he bounced on his heels. "I don't know how I'm going to be able to get to sleep tonight with all this excitement!"

* * *

><p>Noah appeared, however, to fall asleep immediately when his head hit the pillow. He remained completely still and breathed rhythmically. Danny had wanted to ask him some more information about ghosts, but Noah was out cold as soon as his head hit the temporary air mattress that Danny's mother had put in until they could get another real bed in Danny's room. Danny smiled and let his head fall, too, closing his eyes and falling asleep almost instantly. Excitement could keep you awake, but the aftermath of excitement had a way of just knocking you out. He drifted off to sleep.<p>

He woke up in the middle of the night, though, from a sore throat. He got up to go to the bathroom for some water, somehow remembering even in his delirious state not to fly, because Noah was sleeping next to him.

But when he turned to see Noah sleeping there, the bed was empty.

That was strange. He stopped in the bathroom and got himself a drink, then went downstairs to see if Noah went down for a midnight snack. The lights weren't on in the kitchen, but there was a soft glow coming from what must have been the lab.

Danny walked down the stairs to the lab. There were fizzling and popping sounds, almost like when his father was working on an invention. Noah was working on one of the lab tables, with materials spread out on the table that Danny had never seen before; he assumed Noah had brought them. Or purchased them when he arrived.

He was using a blowtorch to weld some sort of thin, rectangular metal; he had on a welding mask with a little window for his eyes. He had some wires laid out in front of him and seemed to have just started working.

Whether or not this was a good intention, it aroused Danny's suspicions that Noah was wandering around his house at night, without telling anyone. He waited until Noah was done welding and lifted up the mask, then he stepped into the open and cleared his throat, folding his arms.

Noah whipped around and gulped. "Oh. Um… Hi, Danny."

"Hi, Noah. What're you doing down here so late at night?"

Noah looked down at the device he was inventing. "I like to invent stuff."

"At one o'clock in the morning?" Danny asked. "I'm sure my parents would love you to exercise your talents at normal times. It's all right."

Noah shook his head. "I like working alone. And this is something… pretty big that I'm working on, and I don't really want anyone to know about it yet. In case it fails."

Danny didn't know why, but he was a little unnerved.

"Sorry for getting you out of bed," Noah said. "I think you should go back. I'll be here for another couple of hours."

"Don't you need to sleep?" Danny asked.

"I get by with very little sleep," Noah said. "I'll be fine; don't worry about me."

Danny wasn't very comforted by this. He decided to do a little invisible spying for a while, and as soon as he was around the bend, he turned invisible and floated quietly back down.

For the next thirty minutes or so, Noah continued to work diligently while standing in place. Danny had trouble keeping his eyes open for long, and so decided to leave Noah alone for now; he flew up to his room and went back to sleep.

* * *

><p>Noah wasn't in bed when Danny woke up, either; Danny walked downstairs, intending to check the lab again, but saw Noah frying bacon in the kitchen.<p>

Jack Fenton was sitting with a plate in front of him, eagerly devouring most of what Noah set down before Jazz or Maddie had a chance at it. Jazz was reading a book Danny had never seen before, entitled _Ghosts: They Just Wanna Have Fun._ She twirled her spoon around in an empty bowl of cereal and ate one strip of bacon when Noah set out more. Maddie took two, and Jack had seven.

"This is a really interesting read, Noah," Jazz said, waving the book at him. "Through my experience, I've seen a lot more ghosts who want to take over the city than ghosts who are neutral towards human actions. But the author here is right—most ghosts just do what amuses them, and want to see if there's anyone who can stop them."

"I'm glad you like it," Noah said. "Mrs. Fenton, I cleaned up the lab because I woke up early today; I hope that's okay with you."

Maddie clasped her hands and her eyes shone. "That's wonderful, dear! You didn't need to do that, but thank you so much! I was going to spend my afternoon cleaning up down there!"

Danny smiled, because he knew that Noah hadn't woken up early. In fact, it seemed like he hadn't slept all night; there was a good chance that Danny would have woken up if Noah had come back in and gotten back in bed.

Noah was on everyone's good side already. He was a bright student who loved hearing Jazz's college thesis on ghost envy, and lent her books; Jazz loved him. He helped around the house and cleaned up after everyone; Maddie loved him. He hunted ghosts and cooked bacon; Jack loved him. He was really into technology; Tucker loved him. And he was sensitive and good-looking; Sam loved him.

But there seemed to be a dark and foreboding secret over a lot of good things that happened to them. Danny was just waiting for this kid to break his accent and admit that his name was Elliot and he was from Michigan, not England.

He didn't tell Sam or Tucker that, of course. However, he definitely noticed that since stumbling upon Noah in the lab, Noah kept to himself a lot more around Danny. He didn't talk about ghosts when Danny was around, and he became quiet and reclusive whenever the subject was brought up around Danny. Sam actually cornered him in gym class to talk about it.

"What's happened?" Sam asked him quietly as Tetzlaff cheered on Noah in a game of handball. "Noah doesn't seem as comfortable around you anymore."

"I caught him sneaking around in the lab last night," Danny said. "He was inventing something down there at one o'clock in the morning."

Sam didn't know whether to be angry at Noah for sneaking around, or at Danny for spying on Noah. "Are you sure it was him? Not Amorpho?"

"Oh, right, Amorpho," Danny said. "But no, I'm confident it was him. He wasn't in his bed, and I watched him invisibly for about a half hour after I talked to him. I don't know if he ever went to sleep last night."

"Never went to sleep?" Sam asked. "But he seems fine."

"I know," Danny said. "I was wondering about that, too."

"And you're sure it wasn't Amorpho?"

"Sam, if it was Amorpho, my ghost sense would have gone off."

"Right," Sam said. "Forgot." She watched Noah leap into the air and score a goal, and her eyes softened again; Danny knew the conversation was over. But that still didn't answer his questions.

He walked over to Tucker. "Hey, can I ask you a favor?"

"Sure," Tucker said. "Well… I mean, depends on what it is."

Ms. Tetzlaff blew her whistle loudly. "Foley! Manson! Fenton! Your team is up. Go back on the court!"

Danny jogged alongside Tucker and whispered to him, "I need you to hang out with Noah tonight without me. Bring Sam if she wants to go… which probably means yes. Anyway, I'll say I'm getting a little sick. Bring him to the alley behind the movie theater tonight, and say that's the spot where Danny Phantom likes to hide out. I'll show up and we'll see how he reacts."

"Sounds fine," Tucker said; Ms. Tetzlaff blew her whistle again and the game began.

* * *

><p>Danny saw Noah approached by Tucker after class. Danny pretended to sniffle and cough so that when Tucker asked if he wanted to go, he would say he thinks he's coming down with something.<p>

Noah looked out the window after Tucker was finished talking, and Danny heard Noah' response. "Oh… I don't know about going out tonight."

"Why not?" Tucker asked.

"Looks like rain," Noah responded.

Tucker frowned and glanced out the window. "Um… Not _really_…"

Noah patted his shoulder. "I live in England. I know rain when I see it. That's okay; we can go out tomorrow if the weather gets better."

"Well… All right." Tucker nodded and jogged away.

Noah walked up to Danny, initiating conversation with him for the first time that day. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking concerned. "You look like you might be coming down with something."

"I was thinking that, too," Danny said, and coughed. "I don't know… If this doesn't get much better, I might stay home tomorrow."

"Oh," Noah said, looking a little upset. "Well, Tucker and Sam and I were going to go out tomorrow to see a movie and then see if we can spot Danny Phantom. I hope you're better. We can postpone it if you're not."

"Which movie?" Danny asked.

"Day of the Dead Living 2: Activity Paranormal."

"Oh, I've seen that one already. It's all right."

"But we could see Danny Phantom!"

"Really, it's okay. Don't change your plans on my account."

Noah smiled. "You're such a nice guy," he said. "Well, I'll make sure it's fine. with Sam and Tucker, but if you really want us to go…"

"I do."

"Then maybe. We'll see how you feel tomorrow."

Danny nodded and led him to their next class.

* * *

><p>Dash came up to Noah again at lunch, having been interrupted last time by the appearance of the Lunch Lady, and asked Noah to go to football practice with them for the playoffs this coming weekend. Noah sympathized with the football team for having just lost their best punt returner from a broken leg, and he agreed. Dash said that from the way Noah ran, he'd make a perfect returner and a valuable part of the offense.<p>

The rest of the day was normal... no ghost attacks. Noah was slightly disappointed. It did end up raining, though, pretty heavily. Danny and Noah returned home again, had a chat, and Danny pretended to be getting sicker. Maddie prescribed him with an early bedtime and some cold medicine, which Danny stored in his cheek and later sneakily spat it out down the sink drain. He went to sleep pretty quickly, since he'd woken up last night for a while. He didn't hear Noah come in the entire night.

* * *

><p>He woke up a little early the next morning, having gone to sleep so early. It was still a half hour before anyone else would be up. Noah's bed was again empty.<p>

He stretched and cracked his back and neck, then transformed into his ghost half and phased through the floor all the way to the laboratory. Sure enough, Noah was there again, working on his miniature invention again. It had taken shape now—it was some sort of metal V-shaped device hanging off of a black strap, like some sort of high-tech necklace. He floated nearer to see what it was.

There was suddenly a red glow from the area around the device, and Noah turned around, looking about nervously, grabbing a small ecto-ray-gun from under the lab table. Danny flew away to the bottom of the stairs, waited about ten minutes until he was sure Noah was perfectly calm, and then turned visible again, transformed back into Danny Fenton, and cleared his throat.

Noah turned around again. "Oh. Good morning, Danny." He held up the device. "I think it's about done. I might paint it later so it looks nicer, but…" He held up the device and pressed a button in the center; the prongs on the V-shaped device retracted until it was an even smaller diamond shape. "It seems to be completed otherwise."

"What is it?" Danny asked, very curious.

"It's a secret," Noah said. "I'll show you if Danny Phantom or any ghost ever shows up. I don't think we'll have to worry about ghost attacks as much anymore!"

That sounded… a little ominous. _I'll show you if Danny Phantom shows up? We don't have to worry about ghosts anymore? What does that mean?_

Noah sighed. "Well… massive ghost invasions, we might need more than one of these things. But it's finally done." He was definitely showing signs of fatigue now. "I hope two all-nighters was worth it. This thing better do what it's supposed to do."

"Which is…?" Danny prodded.

"Not telling," Noah said. "Are you feeling better?"

Suddenly remembering his "ailment," Danny faked a cough, then another. "Not really."

"Well, you seem to be able to function fairly well," Noah said. "I bet you could go to school, but don't feel like you have to join us on our movie trip tonight; we'll hold off on that, too, if you want."

"No need," Danny said. "You should go." He coughed again.

"If you say so," Noah said. "Come on upstairs; I'll get some more bacon going."

* * *

><p>When the school day ended, Noah had a football practice with the team. He promised to meet Sam and Tucker at the Nasty Burger at 6, and from there, hit the movie. Danny went home and got caught up on his studies for a full six hours, actually spending time to perfect an essay for Lancer. He figured that would get him a really good grade, which he needed right now, and he was sure to ace the test tomorrow too with the preparation he'd gotten. Which was nice—he didn't especially like getting his grades beaten so badly by Noah on the three quizzes they'd had together so far.<p>

At 9:30, about the time when the movie ended, Danny transformed and flew out of his room, asking Jazz to cover for him if their parents discovered his absence. He turned invisible and streaked across the sky, landing in the alley behind the movies.

His timing was perfect; he heard Sam talking to Noah, explaining what they knew about Danny Phantom.

"He seems to like hanging around in the school during school hours," Sam said. "Maybe he likes getting a free education by turning invisible."

"Maybe," came Noah's voice.

Tucker spoke next. "So, we've been to the movies a lot, and we often see Danny Phantom floating outside the movie theatre. We think he likes to watch—WHAA!"

Danny still couldn't see them, but he got ready to lunge into action at the sound of Tucker's shout.

"Um… What?" he heard Noah ask.

"Your… That puff of—was your—was that your necklace…?"

Danny was about ready to reveal himself, but he was a little spooked by Tucker's mention of the necklace Noah was wearing. He hadn't been wearing it in school, but he was wearing it now. Why? What was that necklace, and what were his intentions?

Suddenly, the best possible coincidence happened.

His ghost sense went off as he turned around, having seen movement. He was still invisible, but he watched _himself_, Danny Phantom, descend from the sky, snickering, and float towards where his friends' voices were coming from.

_This is… So incredibly excellent,_ Danny thought to himself. He followed behind what he assumed was Amorpho, and watched how the exchange would play out. He would blast Amorpho from behind if Amorpho got to talking, but by letting the unwitting dummy go first, he could see if Noah was on the attack.

Amorpho drifted into view and struck a pose; Danny stuck his invisible head around a corner.

"Look!" Sam said, feigning surprise. "Oh my gosh, look! It's Danny Phantom!"

"Whoa!" Noah said, turning around.

He unhooked the necklace in a flash, and pressed the button on it, expanding it into its slightly larger V-form; he whipped it through the air and it curved like a boomerang, slicing a banana-shaped path in the air until it made direct contact with the fake Danny's head.

The boomerang then glowed with a blue light like that of the Fenton Thermos, and Amorpho was suddenly broken down—it was hard to explain, it looked like he just _shattered_—and his pieces flew into the glowing blue diamond on the tip of the V-shaped boomerang necklace; once this was over, the necklace returned to its metallic gray color and flew back to Noah, who caught it and shouted, "_AWESOME!_"

Sam and Tucker gasped. "Wait!" Sam shouted. "What the heck are you planning to do with—_STOP!_"

Noah was running the other way. "Don't think badly of me!" he yelled. "I'm bringing him back to the Fentons' laboratory. I promise I'll set him free soon! Don't follow me, I'm sealing the lab entrance when I get there!" His voice faded as he drifted away.

Sam grabbed Tucker's arm, and she began sprinting after Noah. Danny emerged from the shadows and became visible again, and he yelled, "Guys, don't bother! He's too fast for you to follow him."

Sam and Tucker jerked around and Sam screamed and almost fainted.

"Dude, what the heck?" Tucker shouted, shaking. "We just saw you go into—What the heck just happened?"

"That was Amorpho," Danny responded, laughing. "I saw him flying in, and I figured, hey, why not? I'll see what he's up to with that necklace."

"Danny, you have to beat him there," Tucker said. "Even if Amorpho is a trouble-maker, what is Noah going to do to him?"

"I can't believe Noah would do something like that," Sam whispered. Then she raised her voice. "Oh—Danny. Fly quickly, but I need to mention one thing—right before you… Amorpho… showed up, this little burst of orange flame popped out of… well, it he was in front of us and it was hard to tell. It looked like his necklace shot a wisp of fire. I don't know for sure, but it might be the mechanical equivalent of your ghost sense."

Danny nodded. "I'll be careful," he said. "He won't know I'm there until I make myself known."

Sam hugged him, and then she and Tucker raced on foot while Danny flew ahead.

He stayed invisible, to make sure Noah wouldn't see him, and got to the lab in no time; no matter how fast Noah ran a half-mile, there was no way he had made it the mile trip to the lab before Danny. He turned himself intangible and flew down into the lab, and got electrocuted before he made it all the way in.

He flew back out, and stared inside—it _couldn't_ be. Noah was here already! Had Danny spent more time than he thought talking to Sam and Tucker? Noah must have already had a ride set up; maybe with Danny's parents. But his parents weren't there. It was just Noah, holding his boomerang-like necklace out in front of him with the lab door sealed and a ghost shield cast over most of the lab. Danny was floating just inside the lab, outside of the ghost shield's reach.

If Danny was going to get inside, he had to become human. He'd only do it if it were necessary. For now, he watched and listened.

Noah pressed the button on his necklace, and out poured a mass of smoke that swirled and formed into Danny Phantom's image, clutching his head. "What… What was that? What happened?" Amorpho asked.

"Danny Phantom," Noah said breathlessly. "My name's Noah Nightingale. Well… That's what I've told everybody my name was, so I could live with the Fentons and move to Amity Park to meet you. My real name's Noah Fontaine."

_Noah Fontaine…_ Danny struggled with his memory. He'd heard that name before… but when? Where?

"I'm _very_ pleased to meet you, too… Could you let me out?" Amorpho was looking at the ghost shield with panic.

"I'm sorry I had to capture you like that," Noah said. "I needed to make sure you would stay here throughout my entire explanation. And I needed to talk to you alone. I'm… I know you're only half-ghost, and I know that at most times, you're just a normal high-school kid."

Danny shivered. Noah _knew?_

"You don't understand—" Amorpho started, but Noah cut him off.

"I do understand," he said. "I know you're half-ghost. I don't know who you really are, and you don't have to tell me. But I want you to train me, because…"

He gulped, and then he took a step back and thrust his arms out on either side. Some sort of unnatural shimmering came over him. His arms looked like there were infinitely many little panels instead of skin, flipping over themselves, changing the color of his arms and traveling across his body. Starting from his arms and radiating outwards, his entire body looked like there were little audience members doing the "wave" across his skin.

Where the effect left, his skin changed color and became darker, as if suddenly tanned. His shirt turned green and his pants and shoes turned black; his eyes turned glowing red and so did his hair. He stood in his transformed state, and rose slightly into the air, with the signature soft white glow of a ghost around his entire body.

"Because I'm half-ghost too!" he said.

Danny was absolutely stunned. But it explained _everything_. Why he'd wanted to come to Amity Park and meet Danny Phantom so badly; why Mr. Lancer told them with such short notice—Noah must have been overshadowing him—how he had managed to sneak out without waking up Danny; how he'd gotten to the lab so quickly; why he'd wanted to come to the house with the ghost lab and ghost technology.

"I've made sure no one knows about me," Noah pleaded. "You can take me as your sidekick! Just mention to Sam Manson and Tucker Foley that I didn't actually kidnap you; make up some story—"

Finally, Amorpho spoke up and held his arms out in front of him. "Look, Joey. I really couldn't care less. I'm not Billy Phantom… If you hadn't cut me off so much, you would have known that by now! I was just trying to scare you and have a little fun!" His body twisted and morphed and changed color until it was back to his original state.

Noah nearly fell out of the sky with shock, and his dark face drained of its color. "What—you're not…?" His shoulders slumped, his mouth opened slightly, and he squinted. "That… that can't be… How did…" His eyes watered, and he lowered himself onto the ground in a sitting position. He put his hands in his knees and hugged them close.

It was a moment before anything was said. "Could you perhaps… deactivate the ghost shield or something?" Amorpho asked, tapping him on the shoulder.

Without looking up, Noah reached into his pocket and pulled out a remote; he pressed a button on it. The shield disappeared, and the wall blocking the entrance to the lab retracted. Tucker and Sam had been behind it, but Danny put a finger to his lips and waved at them to get out. They took a look inside the room and their eyes bugged out at the strange new ghost there, but they take heeded Danny's request and backed out of the room silently.

Amorpho had noticed Danny and was floating still. Danny took this opportunity, where Noah could see them both and know that the real Danny Phantom was here. He swooped down and tapped Noah on the shoulder.

"You're still here?" Noah grumbled, and looked up. His eyes widened a bit when he saw Danny Phantom. "Why are you teasing me like this? Get out of here!"

Danny jabbed a thumb to his side; Noah turned and saw Amorpho there, who then turned and flew out of the laboratory. He gasped and looked at Danny with his enormous, now glowing red eyes.

"It's…" He broke into a smile and jumped up into the air next to Danny Phantom; but he wobbled a little bit from overexcitement. "It's you! It's Danny Phantom! Were you watching that whole thing?"

Danny nodded. "I saw everything," he said. "From the moment you let Amorpho out of that necklace you have there."

Noah grinned and rubbed the back of his head. "Well… When Jack Fenton told me he had a device for capturing ghosts, I studied the technology and just made it a bit smaller, that's all…" He looked up. "How did you know I was going to be here?"

Danny smiled. "Because I know you a little better than you think I do."

"What does that mean?" Noah asked, confused, with his signature rapid blinking.

"It means you were right," Danny said. "That Danny Phantom is a half-ghost. But I can fill in the blanks for you from here." He lowered himself to the ground, and Noah followed.

Danny straightened his stance, and then focused; a ghostly white ring appeared around his midsection, spreading across his body, and transforming him back into Danny Fenton. Noah gasped delightedly and clapped a hand over his mouth.

"You're _kidding!_" Noah laughed. "All this time? We never knew each other was…"

"My parents still don't know," Danny said, "and I'd like to keep it that way. At least for now."

Noah nodded vigorously. "That was _such a cool_ transformation—those rings of light!" He transformed back, too, with his skin rippling and changing color.

"I was about to say that about yours," Danny said.

"This explains why Sam and Tucker thought they could introduce me to Danny Phantom," Noah said. "So… Danny… I know this was a bit of a weird three days, and I didn't get to ask you in the way that I planned. But…" He smiled meekly. "Will you train me in using my ghost powers?"

"Of course!" Danny said. "Wait until you see the sweet training course we can get set up down here."

Noah bounced up and down on his heels again. "This is so awesome," he said "Thank you, Danny. Thank you so much!"

"I think we're going to have a fine couple of months together," Danny said, walking upstairs.

* * *

><p>"Did you see that ghost down there?" Sam asked, firing the question at Tucker as soon as they were alone. "Was that—<em>Noah?<em> I mean… It makes sense, but… That's crazy!"

"Remember that book Danny had, that talked about half-ghosts?" Tucker said. "Wasn't there someone named Noah listed there?"

Sam nodded with a dropped jaw. "Holy cow," she said. "That's amazing."

Jack Fenton walked into the room and put his hands on his hips. "Well?"

Sam looked around; Tucker looked up. "Well what, Mr. Fenton?"

Jack huffed. "Well, what do you have to say about the security footage from the lab, showing my son turning into the Ghost Kid?"

Tucker had a spasm and Sam nearly fell off the couch. "W-What?" she stammered.

Jack spun around in the air and his form distorted, shape-shifting into Amorpho. "Just teasing you," he said. "I'm getting out of this town for good this time. I keep getting in far over my head. Give Billy the message for me."

"His name's Danny, by the way," Tucker said.

Amorpho nodded. "My apologies. Give Tammy the message for me."

With that, he rose through the ceiling and vanished, waving, leaving only two ghosts left in the house. The two half-ghosts went back up to Danny's room after Sam and Tucker had departed, and they talked long into the night.

-THE END-


	6. Episode 57: Rising Tides

EPISODE 57—RISING TIDES

The television was on at full blast in Danny's living room when he woke up one weekend. Jazz, Jack, and Maddie were huddled around it; he and Noah peeked in to see what was going on.

"The recent storm at Lake Eerie, of unprecedented strength, did intense damage to a government facility located nearby," Lance Thunder reported. "A tree was reported to have fallen, and been blown by hurricane-force winds, into the side of a local government research facility. Flash floods were also reported around various regions for miles around, shortly after the accident."

"I'm telling you, it's a water ghost!" Jack bellowed. "I'm sure of it! The Guys in White were doing research on a ghost that could control water, and when their security failed, that ghost escaped!"

"That's ridiculous, Dad," Jazz said. "You think everything is the work of ghosts. I'm sure the flash floods were because of the storm."

"Because of a storm that freed a ghost!"

"Jazz, I think you're father's right," Maddie said. She then looked at Jack, who was still watching the TV, and added in a whisper, "This time."

"How do you know?" Danny asked; the three elder members of the family looked up.

"Good morning, Danny," his mother said. "And I'm saying that all this happenstance—the government facility, the floods, and the strange new breeds of fish appearing in local rivers and streams—it matches what our suspicions are. That research facility next to Lake Eerie was always where people believed the Lake Michigan Ghost was taken once the government captured it!"

"But isn't the Lake Michigan Ghost a myth?" Jazz asked, frowning.

"That's what they _want_ you to think," Jack stated triumphantly. "They covered up ghosts for a long time, they did!"

"What do you think?" Danny asked, elbowing Noah lightly.

"Oh, I think the Lake Michigan Ghost is the real deal," he said. "All the accounts seem to fit together a little too—"

Danny's ghost sense suddenly went off, a cold wisp of blue air escaping his lips. Noah's ghost sense went off at the same time—Danny had learned that Noah's ghost sense was a little burst of fire that escaped with his breath. That explained what Tucker and Sam thought they saw in the alley right before they had first learned about Noah's powers. He looked a little bit like a dragon, letting loose a puff of flame. They looked at each other and backed out of the room.

"If it isn't a ghost's work, I'll eat my hat!" Jack yelled as they edged away.

"You don't have a hat, sweetie."

"Oh, right. I'll eat my jumpsuit!"

Danny raced up to his room and grabbed the Spooktacles; Noah followed close behind him. Danny turned his head intangible and stuck it out the wall, looking around, and gasped when he caught sight of a glowing gray aura just outside.

A few drops on his head told him that it was starting to rain. He looked around to see a dark and threatening sky overhead that stretched in all directions, and seemed to be growing. But just five minutes ago, when he'd woken up, the sky had been cloudless.

He couldn't see what ghost it was—just a dark gray aura. But his suspicions were confirmed when the figure raised its arms and the rain picked up intensity immediately, hammering the ground below; people in the streets yelped and ran for cover.

"It's Vortex," Danny said after he pulled his head back in. "The ghost of weather! What's he doing out again?"

"The ghost of weather?" Noah asked. "Whoa. What aren't there ghosts for?"

Danny thought for a moment. "Good question. Light, maybe? And fire—thank God there's no fire ghosts."

Noah smiled and held up a hand with a glowing fireball in it.

"Present company excluded," Danny corrected himself. "All right. I'm going to go out there." He transformed and got ready to fly out.

Noah transformed, too, his shirt turning green and his pants turning black; his eyes and hair became blood-red and his skin turned tan. He got ready to fly next to Danny.

Danny turned and grimaced a little bit. "Um, Noah…"

"Yeah?" Noah asked, looking at him.

Danny put a hand on his shoulder. "You know… I'd been thinking. It was okay when you helped me take on the Box Ghost yesterday in the middle of the night—that was fine. You were great. But I'm not sure you're quite ready for this one. Vortex is a handful." He sighed. "Also… I don't think anyone can see us working together."

Noah blinked rapidly. "What?"

"Well, think about it," Danny said. "If a new ghost superhero, the same age as Danny Phantom, showed up and started battling ghosts, at almost the same time as a new high school student, the same age as Danny Fenton, showed up and started attending Casper High… It would put you in more danger than any ghost fight. The Box Ghost in the middle of the night… That's fine. Anytime. But in plain sight? The Guys in White would be onto you. And maybe me, too—guilt by association."

Noah thought it over for a while, and then nodded. He got out of his fighting pose, and transformed back.

"I'm really sorry," Danny said.

"No, you're right," Noah said. "I should have thought of that, too. Here." He lifted his necklace off its strap—the prototype new ghost-catching device that could capture any one ghost at a time—and handed it to Danny. "Try it out for me!"

"How do I work it?"

"Just whip it at 'em. It'll track down the nearest ghost in its path. Throw it slightly to the right of your target; it'll spin around and smack the ghost. If it misses, though, I'd suggest turning human, because it'll come back towards you, and then… well, you know."

"Yeah," Danny said. "Thanks!" He stopped for a moment to make sure Noah was okay with being left behind, and then he turned intangible and leaped out the window.

Noah sighed and sat down on his bed, drumming his fingers on his knees, his usual cheerful mood gone. He wasn't mad at Danny—Danny had been completely right—but he still was missing the action that he'd come to this town for, and it was highly disappointing in a stomach-sick sort of way.

* * *

><p>Danny flew up behind Vortex, struggling against the torrential rains. He turned intangible to fly effortlessly through the rain, but he had a feeling that he wasn't going to be able to throw the necklace at Vortex in this weather; it'd get hit wildly off-course by the rain. He'd have to get up close.<p>

Vortex turned around, somehow sensing Danny's presence near him. "You!" he yelled, sending a bolt of lightning from his fingertips immediately. Danny barrel-rolled and veered hard to the right and dodged it, then floated near Vortex. Vortex took a deep gasping breath and then declared, "Leave now if you know what's good for you!"

"Sorry to rain on your parade, Vortex," Danny said. "But your future isn't looking so sunny!" He blasted a beam of energy at Vortex, who swiped it away with his hand.

"I have no time for—" Vortex gasped deeply— "your idiotic puns! I have direct orders that you are to be—" another deep gasp— "_eliminated!_"

"Direct orders?" Danny frowned. "What, are you working for Vlad again?"

"No!" Vortex huffed. "I serve my older brother now!" An extreme gust of wind whipped through the air, and Danny fought against it as much as he could. His arms were busy trying to keep him steady, so he fired an ice beam from his eyes.

The beam split through the rain and air, freezing some of the drops on its way. It hit Vortex directly. He gasped as his lower body was encased in ice, and he smashed against it as he fell to the ground; eventually, the ice shattered, and he regained his balance. However, his attention had shifted away from keeping up the wind and rain, and both died down momentarily.

This gave Danny an idea, and he continued to fire beams of ice at Vortex. The rain slowed by a lot until it was just a drizzle.

Vortex became furious, and he screamed, "YOU MAY HAVE GAINED NEWFOUND CONTROL OVER ICE SINCE THE LAST TIME WE MET—" gasp— "BUT THAT WON'T MATTER IF THE ICE DOESN'T STAY!" He flexed his muscles—or whatever equivalent of muscles a ghost had—and the rain clouds disappeared. Sun began shining brightly down, and all the ice melted in an instant.

"Perfect," Danny said, grinning. "I bet you think you're hot stuff, don't you?"

"I SAID, NO PUNS!" Vortex hollered.

"I'm just adding some humor to the same old boring fights," Danny said. "Because I doubt you're going to find this funny!" He took the metal diamond off the necklace, extended it into the boomerang shape it had, and whipped it slightly to the right of Vortex, as Noah had said. The weather ghost eyed it curiously until it curved back around towards him; he backed away rapidly but the device changed its course and struck him in the side of the head, pulling him into the bluish-glow that surrounded the device until he disappeared. It whirled back around and Danny caught it out of the air.

"Awesome job, Noah," Danny whispered to himself. He flew back down to give Noah the great news of the device's success.

* * *

><p>When he got back inside, Noah wasn't in his room, or in the lab, or in the kitchen, or in the living room. Danny was a bit nervous about this.<p>

"Jazz?" he asked his sister, who was on a sofa in the living room, still reading from the pile of books Noah had brought with him. "Have you seen Noah?"

"Oh, yeah," Jazz said, not looking up. "He's in my room."

"Your room?"

"He's looking through some of the books that I have," Jazz said. "He seemed interested in the sort of fantasy books I loved when I was in eighth grade and in freshman year. So I showed him my collection."

Danny wandered up the stairs and walked into Jazz's room. Noah was sitting on the floor, his back against Jazz's bed, reading a book entitled _Eragon._ Next to him were three books that looked like they were from the same series, and some other series: _The Wheel of Time, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Books of Umber,_ and _Twilight,_ turned upside-down and shoved in a corner.

"No Twilight for you, huh?" Danny asked, chuckling.

Noah looked up briefly. "No, it's just that I've already read the first one. It didn't deserve the extreme hype that its fan base gave it, but it also certainly didn't deserve the firestorm of intense hatred that came from the people who never read it."

"Just an average book?"

"Just an average book. At least to a fourteen-year-old guy. Maybe it's more relatable or something to the girls."

Danny poked a stack of three books with his feet. "What's _The Books of Umber?_"

"Came highly recommended by a friend," Noah said. "They said that it was amazing. It's won several awards, but it didn't become a huge phenomenon like some of the others inexplicably did." He looked back down at his book.

Danny tried to smile. "I hope you're not upset at me for asking you to stay back."

"Oh, no, definitely not," Noah said without looking up. "I promise I'm not mad at you. It's was just a little disappointing, that's all, but I can deal with it."

"Your necklace worked great," Danny said, holding up the diamond-shaped piece of metal. "I don't know how you did that. So, it can only hold one ghost at a time?"

"That's right. At least until I improve it."

"Are you making another one?"

Noah nodded. "I'm working on it in the lab right now, and I don't feel embarrassed doing it in front of people now that I know it'll work. It's going to be the exact same device again, and maybe after this, I'll try to devise one that can capture more than one ghost at a time. Also, I'm doing it at a healthy pace as of now; not taking any more all-nighters."

"I… guess…" Danny was listening to the noises from outside, and forgot what he was about to say. "Are those police sirens?"

"Yeah," Noah said, putting his book down this time. "Might be an ambulance. Wonder if that has anything to do with Vortex."

"Oh, yeah," Danny said. "Vortex. He said… he was serving his older brother."

"Older brother?" Noah said, wrinkling his brow. "I didn't know ghosts could have siblings. …Present company excluded."

"I knew of one pair of siblings," Danny said. "Dora and Aragon."

Noah looked down at his book. "Eragon?"

Danny laughed. "Interesting. I doubt the author knew about the ghost, but interesting coincidence… since Aragon was a dragon-ghost."

Jack Fenton suddenly burst into the room. "Kids!" he yelled. "Have you seen any sign of the Refrigerator Ghost?"

Danny and Noah both just stared blankly.

"He will not have our ham!" Jack shouted and ran back down the stairs.

The boys exchanged glances.

Jazz walked into the room. "Don't mind Dad," she said. "It's just that there were a bunch of refrigerator thefts last night, and the police say it could only have been a ghost… it was too many refrigerators and too little trace of where they'd gone." She laughed to herself. "And he might have been able to avoid Dad's wrath if he'd gone after, say, microwaves, or toasters, but _no one_ is messing with our refrigerator and getting away with it."

"How true that is," Danny said as Jazz walked out.

"Danny!" he heard his mother call. "Tucker and Sam are here!"

"Awesome!" He jumped up and ran down the stairs. "Come on, Noah."

"I think I'll stay here," Noah said softly.

Danny's face fell a bit, but he nodded and ran down the stairs.

Sam and Tucker grinned at him as he approached the door. As Sam walked in, she asked, "So, what was that torrential two-minute rain storm we had just now? Another appearance of Gasper the Friendly Ghost?"

"Vortex? Yep."

"How'd you beat him so quickly?" Tucker asked.

"This thing worked amazing!" He held up the necklace. "Noah's invention may save me so much effort if he reinvents it to capture more than one ghost at a time."

"Speaking of the protégé, where is he?" Sam asked, looking up towards the stairs.

"He's… a little disappointed," Danny said.

"Ah," Tucker said knowingly. "Finally broke it to him?"

"Yeah," Danny said quietly. "I mean, I'd love him to help. But it just seems like it would be a little too obvious if someone started paying attention."

"No, I agree totally," Sam said. "And he's nowhere near as skilled as you. He needs some time to work on his skills, anyway. Vortex would have creamed him—he almost creamed you, Danny, even just recently."

Danny nodded in agreement. "And we wouldn't want him gaining weather powers tied to his emotions, like I did."

"Aw!" Tucker said. "But it was so funny the first time!"

Sam suddenly jumped. She took out her phone and flipped it open. "Ugh. Sorry. It's my mom." She walked into the living room with her phone over one ear and a finger in the other. "Hello?"

"So, what brings you guys here?" Danny asked.

"We figured we'd stop by and see what's up, ghost-wise," Tucker said. "You know, due to the freak shower we just had, followed by ten seconds of scorching heat that would even have given Sam a tan."

"She's Goth," Danny said. "She wouldn't have tanned; she'd have dissolved."

Sam walked back into the room with her phone away and a look of disgust on her face. "Sorry, guys," she said. "My mom wants me to get home. I didn't exactly tell her that I left, and she's all freaked out about the weather. And this time, my grandmother agrees with her, which is highly unusual."

"That's freakier than the weather," Tucker said. "But, if you must."

"I must," Sam said, and opened the door a little more harshly than normal. She didn't exit, though, just stood and stared.

"Sam?" Tucker asked. "You know you're supposed to walk through the door after you open it if you want to get anywhere?"

"What's going on?" was Sam's response.

Danny and Tucker both peered out the door, and watched as dozens of people ran back into their houses. The street was flooded. It wasn't the flood caused by the short rain they'd had—that left the ground wet, but not this wet. The water was still rising, and it was almost up to the top step to the door of Fenton Works. Already, some people were out on their roofs, looking out at the source of the water—the lake on the edge of town.

"Guys," Danny said. "I think I just figured out who Vortex's older brother is."

"The Lake Michigan Ghost?" Tucker said.

"And that the storm that blew a tree into the research facility was no freak accident?" Sam added.

"And," Danny continued, "that we've officially got bigger problems to worry about than the Refrigerator Ghost."

"The what?"

* * *

><p>Danny Phantom popped back through the Ghost Zone, necklace in hand, and transformed in front of his friends. "Taken care of," he said.<p>

"Where'd you dump Vortex?" Noah asked.

"I handed him over to the Observants," Danny said. "He was supposed to be serving a prison sentence, anyway, but Vlad set him loose in that whole weather-conspiracy thing that went wrong."

"Oh, yeah," Tucker said. "That was some good times."

Danny waded through the almost knee-deep water and reached the stairs, which looked like twenty or so mini-waterfalls. The rest of the group followed him up.

The walls of the lab were well-built; the water wasn't leaking through there. It was pouring through the cracks under the doors and through a couple weak spots in the foundation. The water had risen up to about a foot above the level of the door on the Fentons' house, and almost everybody was on their roofs. Thankfully, though, the water was simply gushing down into the underground lab and then falling through into the Ghost Zone. It was like an endless drainage system; the water wasn't rising any higher, since it was draining out as quickly as it was coming in.

They reached the top of the stairs, and walked into the kitchen. Jack Fenton was standing guard in front of the refrigerator with the Fenton Bazooka in several inches of water, looking left and right. "You kids see anything yet?" When they all shook their heads no, he smirked. "That's because he's scared to afterdeath of what I might do to him if he shows his face around here!"

"You've noticed the flood, right, Dad?" Danny asked.

Jack looked down. "Did I leave the sink running again?"

"No, Dad," Danny said. "It's just a flood."

"A GHOST FLOOD?" Jack boomed.

"N—" Danny cut himself off. "Actually, yes."

"I knew it!" Jack said. "But that can wait until I catch the Refrigerator Ghost red-handed!"

"I think most ghosts have blue or green hands," Noah piped in. Danny was glad to see that he seemed to be over his small funk.

"All right," Danny said as they went into the living room. "Now that I've got this necklace freed up again, I'm going to go see if I can't find the Lake Michigan Ghost."

"I think he calls himself Riptide," Noah said. "That's shorter, anyway."

Danny nodded. "So I'm guessing it'll be just as short as the first time… if it could capture Vortex, a ghost powerful enough to spread storms across the globe, it's gotta be able to get anything."

"Stay safe," Noah said. "We'll hold down the fort."

"Take the Fenton Phones," Sam suggested. "And the Spooktacles."

"Oh—good idea," Danny said. "I'll tell you when I find him." He practically flew down to the lab—actually, he did fly—and grabbed two sets of the Fenton Phones and their microphones, along with the new pair of Spooktacles his father had just finished. Good thing Sam reminded him—he had been intending to go down and steal the glasses when they were finished. He couldn't have his father looking through them—if he saw Danny, it would blow his secret identity. He flew back up and gave a set of the Fenton Phones to Sam, and then was about to transform.

But he noticed Noah looking down the hall, and he thought it might be a little insensitive to the kid if he transformed and flew off here—it could be sad for him, being teased by the fact that he couldn't join Danny. So Danny flew up to his room, transformed there, and blasted off, sliding on the Spooktacles.

The water was glowing an eerie green color, as if it wasn't all Earthly water. Danny looked around, but he didn't see anything other than the glow just yet.

"See anything?" came Sam's voice from the headphones.

"No… not yet," Danny said. "Well… kind of. The water doesn't really seem natural. It looks like a mix of normal water and glowing green water."

"Whoa," Sam said. "Does that go for the water we were wading in before?"

"I think so," Danny said. He floated further ahead, looking down the streets. "Wait! There's… a darker shape of color under the water. It looks like it might be… purple. Maybe it's red and just under the water?"

"Check it out," Sam said. "Is it Riptide?"

"Either that or the Refrigerator Ghost became the Outdoor Pool Ghost," Danny said. He leaned in closer to see what it was.

Suddenly the shape writhed in the water, turning itself vertical, and shot upwards, breaking the surface and lunging for Danny—it was a blood-red shark with three eyes. He shouted out and pulled himself upwards; the shark's jaws just missed him, and it slammed back into the water.

"What? What?" Sam yelled. "What was that?"

"Ghost shark," Danny said. "I don't think it was Riptide—it didn't look exactly sentient—but I think Riptide has little helpers."

"Sentient," Sam said. "Good word."

"Thanks, I guess," Danny said. He tracked down the purple underwater shape again, and zapped the water around it with an ice ray. It thrashed for a moment before it was frozen solid. "Hey! That works."

"What works?"

Danny found another purple glow with the glasses, and froze that one solid, too. "I'm freezing them solid under the water. Seems to be working fine right now."

"Keep doing that," Sam said. "Maybe you'll cheese off Riptide enough so that he'll come after you."

"Exactly," Danny said, blasting another shape; this one was smaller, and as the ice cube containing it floated to the surface, it appeared to be a ghost piranha with jaws so big they wouldn't shut all the way. "And for the record, I don't advise going for a swim."

"I hadn't planned on it, but good advice."

He stalked through the drowned streets for a while longer, blasting the fish and sharks solid; he must have struck twenty of them in ten minutes. Finally, a result came to fruition: the ground started shaking violently. Houses began to collapse, and people fell into the water everywhere.

"Oops," Danny whispered.

An enormous form broke the surface of the water a few feet away; Danny jumped back. Through the Spooktacles, it was the same color as the water; when it materialized, it became a darker green. It was four stories tall, with water constantly running down its skin like a river, drizzling into the growing flood. It wore nothing but a rough garment of seaweed from its waist to its knees, was covered in fins, and had gills on its side flaring in anger. He was sure that this was Riptide.

"WHO DARES TO FREEZE MY PRECIOUS WATER?" Riptide proclaimed. "AND WHO DARES TO DRAIN IT INTO THE GHOST ZONE?"

"That doesn't sound good," Sam muttered through the headphones.

When Riptide saw Danny, the ghost didn't bother with a monologue, or a lame pun, or an accusation of any sort. He simply punched his hand into the water, and an immense wave of water erupted in a direct path towards Danny. He shot upwards into the sky, but the water followed him, shooting upwards and grabbing him like a tentacle, pulling him below the surface.

He could see purple shapes approaching him from all direction; blood-red piranhas and sharks coming into view. He froze all the water around him solid, to take away Riptide's power from the water that held him. The ghost fish all crashed into the wall of ice, making it crack, and then they backed away and kept hammering it.

Danny turned himself intangible and broke the surface before Riptide could react, and sent a snowball of energy hurtling at his adversary. The water ghost plunged into the depths and rose again twenty feet away almost instantaneously, sending a tidal wave at Danny that seemed to reach the sky.

Danny let loose a few seconds of his ghostly wail, stopping himself before he used up all of his energy. But it was enough to blast the tidal wave entirely backwards, and Riptide parted it as it was about to hit him. He growled fiercely and gnashed his teeth like a shark.

Danny unhooked the necklace and extended the arms again, knowing he was, for now, outmatched; his only hope was that this would work. He whipped the boomerang necklace at Riptide's right side.

As the necklace was about to hit, Riptide suddenly melted, turning himself entirely into water, and he dropped into the flood, disappearing. Danny cringed, looking around for where Riptide might pop up next…

The boomerang, having lost a target, continued its circular path, and Danny didn't notice until it smacked into the back of his head, and then the world spun violently out of view and everything was black.

* * *

><p>"Danny!" Sam said sternly into the microphone, but not too loud to avoid suspicion from the Fentons. "Danny! Come on, say something! <em>Answer us!<em>"

Noah was even paler than usual; Tucker was chewing his beret. Sam turned to them with panic. "He's not answering. What… What do we do?"

"I'm going out to look for him," Noah said. "I'll stay invisible. Even if I'm seen, I doubt that anyone's going to suspect anything if I'm not flying around next to Danny."

Sam's eyes filled with tears. "Don't get in a fight with Riptide, though," she said. "Just find Danny, and come back here as soon as you can. Okay?"

"If Riptide sees you, _run,_" Tucker added. "There's no reason to try to challenge him. This is the older brother of a ghost that beat the pants off of Danny less than a month ago. Be smart."

"Have a little faith, guys," Noah said. "I'm just going to go find Danny."

Sam lunged at him and hugged him tight. "Take another set of the Fenton Phones," she said in his ear. "I'll keep in contact with you."

Noah nodded and broke himself out of the hug, running down the stairs to the lab.

"I hope he's okay," Sam said, wiping the corner of her eye.

"Danny said he's pretty darn good for a kid who's only had his powers for two months," Tucker assured her.

"And he still won't tell Danny _how_ he got his powers?" Sam wondered aloud.

"No," Tucker said. "And I have no idea why."

* * *

><p>Noah scanned carefully everywhere, flying invisibly through the air. He'd brought another pair of Spooktacles that Danny kept in his room, and the Fenton Phones. He felt a little vulnerable without his necklace, though…<p>

He stared down one street, where there was a hulking mass of green squeezing itself through peoples' doors. He heard a shout of, "WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS THE GHOST PORTAL?"

"Guys," he whispered, flying out of Riptide's line of sight. "Bad news. Riptide is looking for the Ghost Portal that's draining all of his water."

"That's really not good," Sam said. "Noah, if he gets close to Fenton Works and feels the current…"

"I know," Noah said. "I'm going to lead him away."

"What? No! You can't put yourself in danger like that!"

"Maybe if I get close, I can find Danny, too," Noah said.

"Noah, are you listening? _Do not go after Riptide!_"

"If he destroys the portal, all of us are going to drown. I won't engage him, but I'm going to lead him away." He flew towards Riptide and charged up his usual energy ball, when his ghost sense went off; a little puff of fire.

He thought for a moment, letting the energy dissipate. Danny had said that, according to a book he'd taken from the Ghost Zone, each half-ghost had control over a specific element. Danny's was ice, and his ghost sense was a burst of cold breath. Noah's ghost sense was a puff of fire, and Danny had postulated that Noah's element was fire.

Well, if that was true, there would be no better time to learn it than immediately. He concentrated on his hand, imagining it getting very, very hot. His hand started to feel warm; he concentrated on an image of fire, and when he next looked at his hand, it was burning.

He grinned wildly, and then held out his hand. As Riptide emerged from another house, still searching for the portal, Noah blasted a stream of fire that hurtled its way through the sky and smashed into Riptide's back.

There was a deafening hiss as steam billowed out of the ghost's back, and he howled and dunked his sizzling backside into the water. Then he lifted himself up and charged after Noah with a roar, despite the fact that Noah was still invisible. The ground began to quake, and several more houses collapsed into the flood.

Noah turned around and jetted himself down the street he'd come from, and Riptide turned and followed, slightly gaining every second. Noah turned again, and again, and soon Riptide was right behind him.

Noah shot directly upwards, and Riptide followed, sending himself high into the sky and grabbing the teen around the waist; Noah struggled, turning visible again, and yelled, "_How can you see me?_"

"FOOLISH HALF-GHOST CHILD!" Riptide cried out. "I AM RIPTIDE, GHOST OF EARTHQUAKES AND FLOODS. I CAN SENSE THE WATER IN YOUR HALF-HUMAN BODY!"

He brought Noah down and smashed the boy into a building; the people on top of it screamed and backed off towards the sides.

On the roof directly next to it was Dash Baxter. Dash's only assumption was that it was Danny Fenton a.k.a. Danny Phantom fighting this ghost for them, and he was quite obviously in danger. Dash had to do something fast. He looked around for anything that might help; what was a water ghost's weakness?

His eyes settled on the appliances his parents had brought up to salvage from the flood: the microwave, the gaming systems, several lamps, all of their televisions, a portable battery pack that you could plug things into… and the toaster.

Dash grabbed the toaster and held it like a football. He plugged in the toaster to the battery pack, so that it had electricity. He wrapped the cord around the toaster so it would fly best, and stuck the battery pack inside the toaster. He then pushed down the lever, turning it on, and threw a Hail Mary directly into Riptide's head.

There was a blast of electricity and steam billowed out of the hole where Riptide's head used to be. He probably would have been screaming, if he'd still had a throat; he threw himself backwards into the water and disappeared.

Noah rose up and stared at Riptide, then looked to his right to see Dash staring at him, confused. "You're not Danny Phantom," Dash said, scratching his head.

"I'm… new around these parts," Noah coughed. From the sound of this boy ghost's voice, Dash had the feeling that Riptide had been strangling him.

Noah turned around and blasted off into the distance before Dash could make the connection. Of course, Dash was already in on Danny's secret, though neither Danny nor Noah knew this.

"Sam," Noah choked into the microphone.

"Oh my GOD. Noah. You freaking… gave me a heart attack. Can you never do that again, please?"

"Sure," he hacked. "No problem." He stopped along the way to give some invisible help to people who were floating around some of the collapsed houses, and then flew back to Fenton Works.

Sam threw her arms around him again. "Noah… That was so stupid."

"I led Riptide pretty far away, though, didn't I?" Noah said in a hoarse whisper, rubbing his throat. "And he'll probably keep going that way, because he'd think I was headed over there. Also, his head exploded."

"What?" Sam asked. "What does that mean?"

"Riptide's head," Noah repeated. "Exploded. He'll probably be able to regenerate, I'm guessing, since he seems to be able to just decompose and reconstruct himself at will. But Dash Baxter was near us when Riptide attacked, and Dash took some sort of electrical device and launched it into Riptide's head. Which then exploded."

"Dash did that?" Tucker asked. "Really?"

Noah nodded. "I recognized him. So… I couldn't find Danny. I don't have the slightest idea where he is; I didn't see him through these…" he took off the Spooktacles and transformed back, "…and he wasn't around where Riptide was."

There was a slight knocking sound at the door. All three of the teens looked over at the door, which still had water rushing through the cracks at a foot above the floor level. "What the heck could that be?" Sam asked.

The knocking was soft and inconsistent. Noah walked over to the door, reached his hand through the door intangibly, and pulled back with the Spooktacles and one of the Fenton Phones.

Sam clamped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, my God," she whispered. "That's…"

"Danny's gear," Noah finished. "But… what…"

There was another soft knocking sound; Noah fished out the second of the pair of Fenton Phones. "But that still leaves…" He looked around, and gasped. "The necklace! It must have come around and hit Danny!"

Sam's eyes shot open. "Where is it?"

"It might have—Oh, God!" Noah turned and flew at top speed down the stairs to the lab. Sam and Tucker followed clumsily on foot, bounding down the stairs.

Noah's eyes found the necklace, which was thin enough that it had slipped through the side of the door. It was floating quickly towards the portal to the Ghost Zone, and was almost there. Noah shot himself like a cannon towards the portal, hooked his fingers around the necklace just as it was about to phase through into the Ghost Zone, and then he blasted backwards again, hurtling towards the stairs and knocking Sam and Tucker over as they came into view.

"Did you get it?" Sam shouted and turned around to see Noah lying on his back on the stairs, holding up the necklace. He pressed a thumb to the center, and the necklace glowed light blue; Danny popped out of it and took a large breath as he looked around nervously, and then saw Sam, Tucker, and Noah.

He let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, man. I thought I was going to be stuck in there forever."

"I'm sorry," Noah said softly, still lying on his back.

"What? Don't be," Danny said.

"My necklace backfired on you."

"No, no," Danny said. "You warned me about that. You said that might happen; I just forgot."

Noah smiled a little bit and lifted his head up. "What now?" he croaked.

"What happened to him?" Danny asked, jabbing a thumb at Noah.

"He threw a fireball at Riptide," Sam said. "To lure him away from the lab."

"Wow," Danny said. "So your element _is_ fire, then."

"That realization was indeed just established," Noah whispered. "But, um, let's not waste any time. How are we going to beat this thing?"

Danny shrugged. "It turned into water when I tried to hit it with the boomerang." He perked up. "Maybe I could sneak up invisibly behind him and hit him in the back point-blank!"

"He can sense you coming, even if you're invisible," Noah said.

"Oh."

"I don't know how this is going to work," Noah said. "Neither of us is strong enough to take him on. I doubt we could even do it together."

Danny thought for a moment. "Maybe," he said to himself.

"What?" Tucker asked.

"Noah," Danny said, turning to him. "I really need your help."

Noah blinked rapidly again. "What do you mean?"

"Do you think you can build a machine that amplifies the power of ghosts?"

Noah thought for a moment, and nodded. "I've built a lot of ghost-related devices. I'm sure I could handle that. Why?"

"Because it really cheesed off Riptide when I froze all of his water," Danny said. "I think… if you can build a machine that uses my ice powers to freeze all of the water in Amity Park… we'd have him by the neck! He'd have no water to work with, and no minions to help him!"

Noah brightened up. "Yeah," he said. "I think I could do that! It might take a while, though, to come up with the designs. I would need something like an ecto-converter."

Danny grinned, and he flew over into the lab again, pulling open drawers and sifting through blueprints. After about three minutes of searching, he pulled out a blueprint of the Ecto-Converter that his parents had attached to the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle before it was stolen. "I think this is what you were talking about," he said.

Noah scanned the blueprints. "This is it," he said. "This is perfect. Then all I need to do is recalibrate the conversion process to intensify the energy instead of altering it into an energy source. Then we can amplify any ghost power a thousand fold!"

"Sounds like a plan," Danny said. "Although I only understood the last sentence of that, it still sounds like a plan!"

"_**NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!**_"

The scream came from upstairs, from his father. Danny turned invisible and shot through the floor, finding a great big empty patch where the refrigerator had been; Jack Fenton was lying on his side with tears streaming down his face, sucking the thumb on one hand and pounding the flooded floor with the other hand.

"The Refrigerator Ghost," Danny whispered to himself, and he flew out the roof.

He immediately saw a refrigerator floating through the air, carried by an invisible thief. Danny zoomed around him and stopped in front; the refrigerator slowed to a stop, and the thief became visible.

"Filch?" Danny shouted. "Oh, come _on._ Do we really have to do this again?"

"I will not be interrupted!" Filch growled. "Move out of the way." His hands were glowing red.

"What do you have against fridges?" Danny laughed. "That's cold, Filch." He unhooked the Fenton Thermos from his belt; he didn't need the necklace for this one. At the sight of the thermos that had captured him a dozen times in the past couple of weeks, he paled and dropped the fridge. "You want it, it's yours!" he yelled and flew away.

Danny flew under the machine and caught it, coughing from the lint that was falling all over his face from the bottom of the fridge. "How does Filch keep getting out?" Danny muttered. He'd taken away the portal-opening device that Filch had stolen from Fenton Works, and it was in the ecto-proof glove compartment of the Specter Speeder. How _did_ Filch keep getting out?

"IT'S THAT DANNY PHANTOM KID! HE'S THE REFRIGERATOR GHOST!"

Danny turned, rolling his eyes at the sight of Jack leaning out the window. His father grabbed an ecto ray gun out of seemingly nowhere and blasted it; Danny was unable to avoid it quickly, carrying the fridge, and he took the blast. As the refrigerator fell towards the flooded ground, Danny shot a beam of ice that froze the water in front of Fenton Works; the fridge fell onto the solid ice block. It was about to tip over, but Danny flew down and picked it up again with great effort, flying it through the wall and into the kitchen. He set it back down where it had been before, just as Jack came into the kitchen with guns blazing.

"That's right, Ghost Kid!" Jack yelled. "You'd better return every single one of those fridges!"

"I'm working on it!" Danny yelled, dodging a blast that knocked a bunch of family pictures into the slightly flooded floor. "First I have to track down the ghost that stole all of them, which I might have been able to do just now if you hadn't _shot me!_"

"A likely story!" Jack roared, and fired again. Danny phased through the floor into the lab, finding Noah hard at work already on the Ecto-Converter.

He turned back into his human self. "Ignore the sounds from upstairs," he said. "I just found out that Filch is the ghost stealing all the refrigerators."

"Why did he suddenly switch to just refrigerators?" Tucker asked. "For the notoriety?"

"I have absolutely no idea," Danny said.

"Sam and I will take care of Filch," Tucker said.

"We will?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, come on," Tucker said. "Our very own ghost mystery, without Danny!"

Sam grinned. "That actually sounds like a lot of fun. Let's take the Specter Speeder. Noah, how fast is Riptide?"

"A little faster than me," he said. "But I don't know if he was going full speed."

"I bet the Speeder could outrun him," Sam said. "Come on, Tucker, let's do it!"

"I'll phase it out for you," Danny said. He passed Sam and Tucker through the wall of the garage with the Specter Speeder inside; thankfully, it was sealed up pretty tight and had remained dry. They all climbed inside; as Tucker started it up, Danny pressed his hands against the wall of the Speeder and turned it intangible. Tucker brought the machine up through the floors of Fenton Works, and once it was completely outside, Danny released his power.

"Have fun with the new ghost tracker my dad installed," Danny said. "It should tell you where the ghosts are in the area… You'll see a bunch underwater, but you could probably set it to only recognize ghosts of Scale 3 ectoplasmic power or higher, and then only ghosts at least as powerful as the Box Ghost would show up."

"Wow, Danny," Sam said. "When did you get so up-to-date on your ghost stuff?"

"Noah was talking about it when he was helping my dad in the lab before," Danny said. "I asked him to teach me a little about the Scale system the government uses."

"You go down there and make sure Riptide doesn't come near the Ghost Portal," Sam said. "Tucker and I will be around, looking for Filch's stash. If we find Riptide, we'll contact you. Or if we know where he is."

"Have fun on your mission, guys," Danny said, and flew back down to supervise Noah. He grabbed the Spooktacles and went back upstairs to have a look around first; Riptide was nowhere to be found. Good. They needed all the time they could get.

* * *

><p>Sam and Tucker floated around, patrolling the area. "Tucker, pull down," Sam said. "There's some people floating around in the water; let's give them a hand. We'll just tell them that the Fentons commissioned us to help salvage belongings."<p>

Tucker nodded and descended. They helped the people back onto their roofs, and then kept going.

"I gotta say," Tucker said. "This is really exciting." He punched a couple keys on the ghost tracker, and then sat back to watch it scan the surroundings. "Our very own ghost-hunting mission… _without_ Danny taking the reins."

"We're so totally capable of doing this by ourselves," Sam said. "Who needs superpowers?"

Tucker raised his hand; Sam's eyelids dropped.

"Sorry," Tucker said. "I thought you were saying, 'Who needs superpowers?' like you were giving them away."

"No, Tucker," Sam said. "Oh—look. The tracker's done scanning. Looks like the closest Scale 3 ghost is by Marley's Home Appliance Market."

"Mrs. McFadden owns that, doesn't she?" Tucker said. "Wasn't she at the conference up in the Op Center on how to defeat Voromni?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "She said she fancies herself an amateur ghost researcher. She got into it because, as the owner of a home appliance market, she has a lot of boxes… and they kept mysteriously disappearing."

"The Box Ghost," Tucker laughed.

"Probably is," Sam said. "Should we even bother?"

Tucker curled a hand over his chin. "What sort of stuff do they sell at a home appliance market?"

"Oh, you know," Sam said. "Big items like ovens, washing machines…" She gasped. "Refrigerators! Tucker, _hit it!_"

"Get ready to rumble!" Tucker said. Sam whipped out her Jack-o'-Nine-Tails and her Fenton Thermos, and strapped on her Specter Deflector. They blasted off towards the home appliance market at full speed.

* * *

><p>Danny watched Noah work diligently, sitting on a lab table to avoid getting any wetter. The water still gushed into the Ghost Zone; he wondered if any ghosts were noticing. As of yet, though, he hadn't seen any come out. If he did, he had a Fenton Thermos at the ready.<p>

Noah was working as hard as he could, but it didn't look like he had made an incredible amount of progress. This was advanced technology, though; his parents had both worked on it and it still took them a week. Granted, that was with other things on their to-do list, but still, it was painfully slow, just watching.

"Do you have an earliest possible estimate of when this'll be done?"

"I'm working as fast as I can, but it looks like this might not be done for a full day… Sorry."

"That's okay," Danny said. "Just work as hard as you can."

"It'd be so much easier if I already had an ecto-converter and just had to modify it," Noah said. "I don't suppose you would know where to get one?"

"Vlad might have one, but I seriously doubt he'd just hand it over if I asked nicely," Danny said.

"Vlad Masters? The mayor?" Noah asked, looking up momentarily, then going back to work. "I didn't know he was interested in ghosts."

"Oh, I didn't mention that one?" Danny said. "He's half-ghost, too."

Noah almost dropped his tools. "Really?"

"Wait!" Danny shouted; his ghost sense had gone off. Noah's ghost sense went off, too; he jerked his head up to avoid burning his project.

Three ghosts at once popped out of the Ghost Zone. Skulker flew out without saying a word; Johnny 13 blasted up the stairs on his motorcycle. Only Technus stayed for more than a few seconds, proclaiming, "Yes! I, Technus, shall once again be free to wreak digital havoc and technological terror upon this human world!"

"Technus?" Danny laughed, a sudden idea coming to him. "Dude, you're so outdated."

"What?" Technus shouted, his eyes bulging from behind his sunglasses. "Do not tempt me, ghost child, especially not in this room, so packed to the brim of what a master of technology can use against you!"

"Master of technology?" Danny snickered. "You see this kid here? He's more of a master of technology than you'll ever be!"

Noah looked up, an angry _Shut up!_ look on his face.

"This child?" Technus laughed. "This little whippersnapper? No human can outdo Technus!"

"That's what you think," Danny said. He held up the blueprints to the machine Noah was building. "Noah here is building an _ecto-converter._ You know how hard those are to make? He's an absolute genius. I bet you couldn't build an ecto-converter if your afterlife depended on it!"

"You young and foolish ghost boy!" Technus yelled, grabbing the blueprints. "Watch _this!_" He held up his hands, and pieces of equipment started coagulating from all around the room. They snapped into place, and other equipment welded them in; finally, metal panels from the walls were stripped and covered the device almost completely. "I have accomplished your task of extreme difficulty in six point three seconds!"

Noah looked on, impressed, as Danny took the necklace and whipped it at Technus. At this close range, Technus was unable to react, and he was sucked into the device, hollering threats. The ecto-converter dropped down, and Danny grabbed it just before it hit the water. "Does this work?"

"That was brilliant," Noah said as Danny dropped the ecto-converter onto the table in front of him. "Thank you! This shouldn't take more than an hour now!"

Danny held up the necklace. "I'm going to go drop him off in the Ghost Zone," he said. "You okay with being alone for a couple minutes?"

"Yeah," Noah said. "Don't worry about me. Go on!"

Danny darted through the portal to the Ghost Zone; Noah stripped away the metal covering the device to begin modifying the inside.

* * *

><p>Sam and Tucker pulled in front of the market, which was on a small hill; only about an inch of water was pouring through the door. The Speeder hovered in place as Sam activated the anti-ghost parking mechanism; it glowed with a ghost shield that was only slightly visible. No ghost of theft was going to be stealing this one.<p>

Sam peered in the window; the refrigerator aisle was visible, but there were no ghosts. The tracker told them that Filch (if it was Filch) was inside the building, but he wasn't here.

They opened the door and ran inside, making as little noise as they could as they splashed in the water. There were stairs leading both up and down; the stairs down below were guarded by a solid-looking iron door that was closed tight. They took the stairs up towards where Mrs. McFadden's office was, to ask her if she'd seen anything.

Sam put a finger to her lips at Tucker behind her; she was hearing something. They crept towards the door of Mrs. McFadden's office at the end of the hall, hearing her yelling behind a closed door.

"Perfect!" she was yelling. "Just perfect. You're telling me the Ghost Kid, Danny Phantom, is on to you now?"

"He only saw me with one fridge, Hester," came a voice. "I lost the fridge, but I lost him, too. You don't need to worry about him coming here."

_That's Filch!_ Sam mouthed at Tucker. Tucker nodded.

"This is just wonderful," Mrs. McFadden groaned. "Just perfect! First, the flood comes in the middle of my brilliant plan to get more business. Then, Danny Phantom found you. What if he traces you back here?"

"Please, darling, don't worry," Filch said.

_Darling?_ Tucker mouthed at Sam.

"I'll take care of all this. Don't get your pretty little face get wet."

Sam risked a peek through the window of the door and saw Filch kiss Mrs. McFadden. But when Filch floated away again, the woman saw movement at the door and caught sight of Sam's head disappearing. "SOMEONE'S HERE!" she screamed.

Filch barged through the door, freezing when he saw Sam pointing the thermos at him. "D-Don't fire!" he said, putting his hands up.

Mrs. McFadden slammed the door open, and gasped. "No!" she shouted, throwing herself in front of Filch. "Don't take him!"

"That was clever of you," Tucker said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "You had your little ghost lover stealing refrigerators so that people would give you more business to replace the fridges. It was a smart plan, I'll give you that."

Mrs. McFadden turned pale. "Don't tell anyone," she said, her knees wobbling. "They'll patrol me and they won't ever let me see him again…"

"Your story of true love would be a lot more touching," Sam interrupted, "if you hadn't been committing crimes together."

"I swear, it'll stop," Mrs. McFadden promised. "You know where to find me if it starts happening again. Please. Just let me live in peace with him."

"Let's go!" Filch yelled, grabbing her legs and pulling her through the floor. Sam and Tucker raced down the stairs, and then down another flight to the basement, the door to which was now open. They stopped when they saw—_a ghost portal?_ Water was pouring through it just like it poured through the portal at Fenton Works.

"Whoa," Sam said. "Didn't expect that one."

"That explains how Filch kept getting out," Tucker said.

"Should we deactivate it?"

"Nah," Tucker said. "I don't want to trap her in the Ghost Zone forever."

"How about the Specter Speeder's Real World Item detector?" Sam suggested.

"Oh, yeah! We'll be able to track her wherever she goes. And if she comes back into the real world, we can track Filch! I think the speeder will fit down these stairs."

"Looks like this case is about to be closed," Sam said, and they darted up the stairs again.

As they burst outside through the door, they saw Mrs. McFadden laughing as Filch flew towards the Specter Speeder. "You're too late!" she cackled. "You should never have left your vehicle running next to the Ghost of Theft!"

Filch grabbed the handle of the door, and suddenly yelped in extreme pain from the electrical shock that coursed through his body. "HESTEEEER!" he yelled.

"No!" she screamed, running at him and prying him away from the handle. "Filch! What did you do to my Filch?"

Sam pulled the cap off of the Fenton Thermos; it sucked in the injured ghost as Hester screamed.

"…Sam…?" Tucker said, staring through the window of the Speeder. "There's… a Scale 6.8 ectoplasmic entity… charging directly at us."

"That's not Danny, is it," Sam whispered, looking around to see a bulge in the water moving towards them at a very high speed.

"Heck, I'd even be happy to see that it was Vlad," Tucker whispered back as the wave broke around the enormous ghost Riptide, with a brand-new head on his shoulders.

"YOU ARE THE ONE WITH THE PORTAL!" Riptide pointed at Hester McFadden, who screamed and ran inside, cowering with her hands over her head.

Riptide blasted in, ignoring Mrs. McFadden and barging down the stairs. Explosions were heard from underneath the floor; Riptide was destroying the portal.

"Come with us!" Sam shouted, running into the building, grabbing Mrs. McFadden's arm, and pulling her towards the Speeder. She threw the hysterical woman in the side door and then dove in herself, closing it as Tucker started it up and blasted away. Riptide burst through the roof of the building, laughing, but did not pursue them.

"Darn," Tucker said as Sam clambered into the front. "I wanted him to chase us. Would've been a great opportunity to test out the features on this baby."

"I am extremely relieved he isn't chasing us," Sam said, her eyes narrowing. "We should contact—um, our friend, and tell him what's going on." She glanced over at Mrs. McFadden in the back; she didn't want the woman to hear more than necessary.

"Then let's get back to the lab and see the progress," Tucker said. "But first… I think we have a delivery to make at the local police station." Mrs. McFadden groaned as Tucker continued, "You can explain to them what's been going on… or we can keep your boyfriend in here forever." He took Sam's Fenton Thermos and shook it around.

"I'll tell them," Mrs. McFadden said, leaning sideways against the wall.

"Then our work here is done," Sam said, giving Tucker a high-five as they zoomed towards the police station.

Riptide, meanwhile, focused his sight, and growled. "There is another portal," he grumbled, sneering.

* * *

><p>"Well," Danny said, snapping his phone shut. "That explains a lot about where the ghosts come from when the Fenton Portal is closed. Noah, Sam and Tucker finished their mission, and it was successful."<p>

"That's great," Noah said, not taking his eyes off of his work. "I've only got a bit more to go. This is going way, way faster than I thought; I ended up not even having to reposition the Plasmodulator!"

"Um, great," Danny said. "When do you think it'll be done?"

"As soon as I can get rid of the—" He suddenly threw his head backwards as a piece of metal shot out from the device he was working on. It struck the wall and flew through the portal into the Ghost Zone. "That's okay, I didn't need that anyway. I'd say about ten more minutes!"

True to his word, in about ten minutes, he was putting the metal panels back up on the sides. Danny got a call from Sam, and when she told him she and Tucker were right outside, he left for a moment to phase the Specter Speeder back through the floor into the lab. Once that was done, Noah held up the device with a big smile.

"That's it!" he said as Danny walked back through the wall of the garage with Sam and Tucker. "Danny, you just have to put one hand on the surface of the water and the other on this machine, and then freeze it as you normally would!"

"Right here?" Danny asked.

"I don't see why not," Noah said. "Hit it!"

Danny pressed a hand to the machine just as a rumbling shook the entire building.

"Oh, man," Danny said as his ghost sense went off, along with Noah's.

A larger wave of water came crashing down the stairs, and formed itself into Riptide, who took up most of the room. "YOU HAD THE OTHER PORTAL!" Riptide roared.

"Danny, _now!_" Noah shouted; Danny slammed his other hand into the water and concentrated on his frost abilities.

The machine beeped and started shaking; as Riptide advanced on the portal, his feet were suddenly stuck in the ground. He looked down and howled with rage.

The ice quickly shot up the stairs; a crackling sound everywhere told him that every drop of water in the flood was freezing solid. Riptide looked around feebly as he started to shrink—this seemed to be an attribute of the stronger ghosts. When they were weakened, they shrank. Riptide became so small that he would have fit inside the thermos without activating it.

Danny stood when he felt his powers stretched too far. He suddenly dropped to the ground and transformed back, and was still.

"Whoa!" Noah said, running over to Danny and checking his pulse. "He's fainted from the stress. Didn't expect that."

Riptide was still struggling with his feet, and eventually he popped out of the icy hold. He had no water powers left, it seemed like, since there was no water in sight. He instead shot an energy blast at Danny.

Noah reacted quickly. The training was paying off. He set up a shield of energy, which blocked the blow, and then he reciprocated with a blast of his own. It sent Riptide spiraling into the wall. Noah then unhooked the necklace off of Danny and he threw it at Riptide, who was charging back at them.

The necklace struck Riptide and sucked him in; it didn't take long, since the ghost was so small. Noah caught the necklace again, and grinned at it, shivering from the cold that the ice had cast over the room.

"Noah!" Sam said. "You did it! You beat Riptide!"

Noah shrugged, his grin faltering. "He was weak, though. It wasn't really me."

"But _you_ weakened him," Sam reminded him. "See? Your talents don't have to be exercised right now in the physical ghost fights. You did so well building a machine to exploit Riptide's weakness!"

"I… guess so," Noah said, smiling a little bit more. "Yeah! I did beat him, didn't I?"

"Yep," Tucker said, his teeth chattering. "Now… h-h-how do we get r-r-rid of this stuff?"

"I think I know," Noah said. He took the ecto-converter from Danny and placed it back on the lab table; he pressed his other hand to the ice and imagined heat.

The ice melted at his touch; the warmth spread to the rest of the ice and soon, Noah could somehow sense through his touch that there was no ice left. He lifted his hand away from the ecto-converter, and enjoyed the spa-like water closest to the source in the lab.

"Sweet," Noah said, as he collapsed from exhaustion like Danny had.

"That was fantastic," Sam said. "I've never felt more victorious."

"We did a good job," Tucker said. "Now we just need to wait for the waters to recede, from flowing through into the Ghost Zone and from normal evaporation and stuff. Whatever usually makes floods go away."

"I think there's been a lot of damage from this one," Sam said.

Tucker shrugged. "That's all right. The insurance companies haven't stopped covering Amity Park yet."

Sam and Tucker stood awkwardly for a moment.

"Why doesn't it feel complete, though?" Sam asked.

Tucker pointed down at Danny, who was still passed out. "Usually he makes some sort of a pun, and then we laugh, and _then_ it feels like it's over."

"Oh," Sam said. "I guess we have to take care of that, too."

"Well… um…" Tucker scratched his hair under his beret. "Water you waiting for?"

"Ice to have met you, Riptide?" Sam tried.

"Oh!" Tucker said snapping his fingers. "It should've been, 'Water you _wading_ for!' You know, like wading through the water? Come on, that's good!"

"I think we need to work on that, too."

"Water you talking about, Sam? Are you saying we're just getting our feet wet?"

"Shut up, Tucker."

-THE END-


	7. Episode 58: Burning Passions

EPISODE 58—BURNING PASSIONS

It was the first of May, and was the hottest day on record ever for the month of May. Danny was cooling himself off with his powers over ice, but Sam, Tucker, and Noah were dying as Ms. Tetzlaff made them do the half-mile run. Noah again finished in under two and a half minutes, but unlike his usual effortless output, he was sweating profusely and leaned against the bleachers with his eyes shut.

"Oh, come on," Ms. Tetzlaff yelled at everyone else who was lagging behind. "You can do better than that. A little sweat is healthy for you! Get going because you're going to be doing some push-ups after this!"

Noah shot the gym teacher a glare, then turned and walked into the boys' locker room. A second later, Ms. Tetzlaff suddenly twitched, and then stood up and yelled to the class, "Plans have changed! I'm going to go lock myself in the boiler room for the rest of the day. You all do whatever you want for the rest of class!" With that, she turned and walked mechanically out of the room.

Most people slowed to a walk; some of them kept running, certain that she would come back. When she didn't return for a full thirty seconds, everyone just went to the bleachers and sat, chatting.

Noah popped out of the boys' locker room with a grin on his face, and Danny went up to him and elbowed him in the side. "Nice," he said. "But don't make a habit out of overshadowing people, of course."

"Oh, what could happen?" Noah laughed, wiping sweat out of his eyebrows.

"You could provoke the spirit of Sydney Poindexter," Danny pointed out.

"Who's that?"

Sam and Tucker walked over with knowing smiles. "I'm guessing that was Noah?" Sam asked.

"You guess correctly," Noah said, flashing a smile. "I'm not exerting myself any more today than I have to."

"It would help if our school hadn't cheaped out on A.C. in the gym," Tucker said.

"No problem," Danny said. He backed up and placed a hand on the wall; almost immediately, the room got several degrees cooler.

"I'm a little worried about you guys using your powers like that," Sam said. "It might attract the wrong kind of attention."

"Like what?" Danny asked as the ceiling burst open and the Guys in White dropped in.

"Freeze!" the first one yelled. "Where's the Ghost Kid? We've observed signs of spectral energy coming from this room!"

"Let's analyze all the things!" the other one stated, pulling out a small device with a satellite dish on top.

Sam looked from Danny to Noah, clenching her teeth. "Guys!" she hissed. "_Hide,_ for the love of God!"

"Don't worry, Sam," Danny said, pulling up his necklace and tapping it. "Noah reinvented the necklace, remember? Now it can seal away more ghosts at a time… but it also hides our spectral signatures."

"We tested it with a bunch of lab equipment," Noah said. "Nothing tracks us, even when we go ghost." Noah had adopted the phrase "going ghost."

The Guys in White started scanning everyone in the room. Dash looked over nervously at Danny, who wasn't moving. Dash edged closer to Danny and whisper-shouted from about twenty feet, "Fenton! _Run!_"

Danny stared back. "…Why?"

The Guys in White turned to look at Dash. He made a nervous fist, pounded it into his hand, and said, "Um… Because I'm going to beat you into a pulp for getting a higher grade on the short story test." He shook the fist and advanced on Danny. "Better get a head start!"

One of the Guys in White intercepted Dash and scanned him with the machine; Dash broke away afterwards and ran up to Danny. "I'm gonna…" He made a fist and grabbed Danny's shirt. "Why the hell aren't you running from me?"

"I have my doubts that you'll follow through on your threats in front of government officials," Danny said.

The Guys in White seemed to think there was something suspicious going on with Danny, and they scanned him next; finding nothing, they moved on to Sam, Tucker, and Noah. Dash put him down with a bewildered look on his face.

"Are you all right, Dash?" Noah asked. Dash hadn't beaten on Danny in almost two months; ever since Noah had shown up, Dash became great friends with Noah and stopped picking on Danny, since Noah lived with him. Or was that really the reason…? Dash was hard to figure out recently. Now he was regressing? Or just forgetting?

Dash caught sight of the high-tech necklace Danny was wearing, which had accidentally fallen outside his shirt after he showed it to Sam. He figured that must have been the reason, and he walked away slowly.

"Um, see you at lunch," Noah said, not getting a response.

Danny looked after Dash. Danny was confused, too… He almost missed having Dash grab him by the shirt and stuff him in a locker, although that seemed to make no sense. Why was he suddenly happy for a moment when Dash picked him up by his shirt collar?

The Guys in White blasted through the hole in the ceiling again, passing through several stories of school, all of which had holes. The kids in the upper levels could be heard complaining as the air conditioning escaped.

"Interesting," Noah said. "I wonder how they locate just the energy, without the source. I'd like to see some of their technology."

"We could go after them and steal some," Danny said, grinning.

"I would, but I promised not to exert myself today."

Suddenly, both of their ghost senses went off. They exchanged glances.

"Wait, wait, wait," Sam said as they were about to head to the locker room. "This could be a trick. Remember? The Guys in White have used ghost decoys to lure you out before, Danny. And they were just here. It seems a little too convenient for me."

Danny walked to the door that led to the outside, and he opened it. Overhead, he saw what looked like a man made of rocks, enveloped in fire. It flew past the school, and then there was an array of shots from Guys in White members below. The new ghost looked down, and then lazily swung an arm in their direction. An enormous mass of bubbling flame exploded downwards, blasting apart what looked like it must have been an entire city block. Buildings crumbled down everywhere. People screamed, and fires continued to burn everywhere, including on the stone sidewalks.

Danny looked back. "This… is not a drill."

"What did you just see?" Tucker asked, starting to look worried.

"Noah, you need to stay here."

"What?" Noah whined. "You're kidding! You just told me last night I was ready to face anything!"

"That was before I saw what I just saw," Danny said. "Noah. This thing appears to be a fire ghost, and I just saw it blast apart every building in a 200-foot radius." Noah, Sam and Tucker all raised eyebrows. "You need to stay here, Noah. I'm worried about you."

Noah glowered, not used to being talked to like a child. "What about you? If this thing looks so powerful?"

"I'm going to try to sneak up on it with the necklace," Danny said. "If that doesn't work, I'm getting the hell out of there."

Noah's expression softened. "Well…"

"Just guard everyone else here for now," Danny said. He exited the building, making sure no one else in the room was paying much attention.

With a quick transformation, he was flying through the air, until he was about a hundred feet away or so from the new ghost that was floating away from the rest of town. He unhooked the necklace, and whipped it hard slightly to the right of the ghost.

He got ready to escape quickly if necessary. The boomerang grew closer… and closer… and the ghost wasn't turning around… closer… almost there…

It melted in midair when it was a foot away.

The ghost's head turned slowly; it stopped moving and stared at Danny. Danny backed away in the air, then turned around and darted away as quickly as possible.

A heat on his back told him he was being pursued; he looked over his shoulder and gasped. This new adversary wasn't flying as normal ghosts did; he was blasting after Danny on a jet of flame that erupted from his feet. His face was craggy and brown; his clothes were all orange, and his glowing-red hand lifted up in front of him and out exploded a massive fireball. It was literally too big to dodge; the wall of flame hurtling towards Danny was the size of the school.

Danny threw up a wall of ice in vain, and made himself intangible. It was no use. The ghostly flame melted the wall of ice before it even had a chance to shatter, and struck him despite his intangibility.

No other blow from any other ghost had ever been so painful. Never had the sheer force of one impact made him feel like he was dying, and dying quickly. The fireball slammed him into the school, and when it left, he was unconscious, intensely burned. The fire ghost turned around and continued onward, leaving an almost completely destroyed Danny Phantom on the ground behind him.

* * *

><p>All of the Fentons were clustered around his bedside when he woke up. Tucker, Sam, and Noah were there, too. His eyelids felt like sandpaper and his arms felt like they were still on fire, but at least he was awake.<p>

"What…" Danny started, but Maddie put a finger to her lips.

Jack was sniffling. "We… We thought we lost you, son," he said.

_My God,_ Danny thought. _Was it that bad?_

"I'll explain what happened to you, sweetie," his mother said softly. "That fire ghost that attacked the school… His name is Vulcrex. A legend in the Ghost Zone, or so says Noah." Noah held up a book in response. Maddie continued. "Vulcrex launched a fireball into the school, destroying half the foundation, and injuring half the students. No one was killed," she added quickly, seeing Danny's look of distress. "You came the closest, though." Her eyes filled with tears. "I want to hug you so very badly right now," she said, "but I know that would be incredibly painful for you. The government is tracking Vulcrex right now, but I don't know how they'll be able to contest him. That's the most powerful ghost I've ever seen. He destroyed an entire city block when the Guys in White fired at him." She smiled weakly. "No deaths yet, thank God."

Danny was still wondering one thing: had he transformed back in time, or had Sam and Tucker been forced to reveal his secret in order to save him?

Sam seemed to read his mind; she mouthed at him, _They don't know. No one saw._

Danny let his eyes close again, and the doctor walked in. "Please," she said in a strong Spanish accent. "You must allow him rest."

Jack and Maddie nodded. "Come on, kids," they said, and walked out.

As they left, Noah walked behind the doctor and disappeared to overshadow her; he brought her through the floor to the level below and popped back up so that they could talk to Danny alone.

"We're going after Vulcrex, Danny," Sam said. Danny's eyes widened, and he tried as hard as he could to look slightly angry. It was hard, though; his skin felt hard and crusty, and moving any part of his body was painful. It hurt even to breathe and blink. Sam nodded her head yes, and continued. "It's our responsibility to hunt ghosts, Danny," she said. "You've done great. But we're going to take this one. Jazz, Noah, Tucker and I talked it out all of last week."

_WEEK?_ Danny twitched in shock.

"Well, five days," Sam said. "We've gotten word of where Vulcrex was sighted last. Around the Kansas area. We're taking the Specter Speeder and going after him."

"Kids?" Maddie shouted. Noah ducked away to overshadow one of them and distract the other.

"We have to do something," Tucker said. Danny shook his head _no_. "No. Really. We've been doing this for a long time. We know the risks. You didn't think it was always going to be as easy as shoving the Box Ghost into the Fenton Thermos, did you?"

Danny had nothing to say to that, even if he was capable of speaking; Tucker was, after all, quoting something that Danny had said once before.

"We'll try what worked on Vortex," Jazz said. "Remember? Vortex got really annoyed when he figured out that you had control over the weather, too. Well, Noah has good control over fire. We'll lead Vulcrex into a trap by having Noah attack him."

This time, Danny felt like he had to object vocally. He rasped, "NO!" but it hurt so badly that he started coughing, and that hurt even worse.

"It was Noah's idea," Jazz said. "And I suggested leading Vulcrex to Frostbite so his ice army can take care of this fire ghost. Danny, I know you object to this. But you're out of commission now. It's our fight. We'll take it from here."

Danny sighed, knowing it was going to be impossible to convince them otherwise.

"We'll be fine," Sam said. "We'll come back." She patted the side of Danny's bed, not wanting to hurt him, and then they left, and there was nothing Danny could do about it.

He stared up at the ceiling, which was cracked and patched up. It was probably damaged from the battle he'd had with Hemozoa. He'd almost died fighting that ghost. And she was nothing compared to the threat his friends were about to face.

* * *

><p>Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and Noah walked out of the hospital; Noah was in the lead, and smacked his head into the chest of a man walking in. "Sorry," he said. Then his eyes widened as he looked up at who it was. "Mayor… Masters?"<p>

The other three gasped, as Vlad looked down at them. "Please," he said in his nicest voice. "It's just 'Vlad' to any friend of the Fentons, my dear Noah."

"How do you know my name?" Noah asked, furrowing his brow.

"Oh, dear boy," Vlad said, smiling. "I'm the mayor of this town! Surely I know all of its inhabitants."

"Good morning, Mayor!" said a man as he walked by on the street.

"Good morning, um… you," Vlad said.

"What do you want?" Sam spat. "Or did you already get what you want? If anything happens to Danny, I swear to you, everyone will know about you!"

"I have no intention of harming young Daniel, and I have no idea what gave you that impression," Vlad said.

"Oh, really?" Sam shouted back. "You don't, huh? You must really be getting old, if your memory's going that fast!"

"I'm not here to fight," Vlad said, holding up his hands. "In fact, I'm here to help. Believe it or not."

"Help?" Sam said, gawking. "Uh, no, I don't believe it, believe it or not."

"Oh, yes," Vlad said. "It may be beyond your feeble young mind to comprehend at this point, but I love a not-destroyed world as much as the next person."

"World?" Tucker asked nervously.

"Vulcrex destroyed almost all life on earth many eons ago," Vlad said. "And he was thusly sentenced to sixty-five million years of imprisonment and intense torture. Which of course only made him madder."

"You're kidding, right?" Sam asked. Vulcrex destroyed the dinosaurs? This was starting to sound like a bad fanfic of their lives.

"He did so by burrowing into the earth and drinking vast quantities of oil," Vlad said. "Oil is what powers him. That's why I can tell you he's headed towards the Gulf of Mexico, to attack the oil vessels and drink the fuel to charge his energy."

That was actually helpful; the four teens stared at him in disbelief. Vlad ignored them and kept going. "And this time, the oil is so much more available; he can incinerate every last inch of the earth and still have power left over for the Ghost Zone. He's focused only on the destruction of life, so he will hold nothing back against a group of four teenagers going off to tweak his chain. I'm going to offer my services to assist you."

There was another silence. "But… you're evil," Tucker said.

"Evil? Perhaps my motives were a bit misguided, but I hardly think I'm evil. I admit, some things, I've done wrong, without regard for how others might feel."

This was a change of character unlike anything they had ever expected. Sam looked at Tucker; Tucker looked at Sam; Jazz looked at Noah; Noah looked at Vlad.

"It's been like a friendly game for a while, between me and Daniel," Vlad said softly. "But of course, when something like this comes up, there are no games involved. Absolutely not."

"What could you possibly do to convince us that you're not going to turn on us after we defeat Vulcrex?" Sam countered.

"I promise?" Vlad said, grinning.

Sam laughed so hard that she almost fell over onto the street; people everywhere looked over curiously.

"How powerful are you?" Noah asked.

The other three teens looked at him. Vlad tugged on the ends of his coat and responded, "Well, I've had my powers for twenty years now, and I suppose I'm pretty good with them. Why do you ask?"

"I want you to teach me while we're on our way," Noah said. "Teach me some of what you know."

Vlad smiled. "I would be honored to do that."

"Noah, what are you doing?" Tucker muttered at him.

"I knew he'd already know my secret," Noah said. "If he knows what we were planning, he's got cameras in the Fentons' house." Vlad looked away at that statement, hiding a small smile. "And I think that if there's a way we can increase our chances of coming out of this both alive and successful, then I think it's worth it." He turned back to Vlad. "I happen to trust you… for now."

Vlad smiled back at the boy. "I am glad," he said. "I know I haven't exactly given you reason to enjoy my company. But believe me when I tell you I am a necessary presence this time." He took a step forward and patted Noah's shoulder. "As much as I hate Jack Fenton for ruining everything and stealing the love of my life… I still would rather not see everyone else in the world go up in flames."

"So why did you agree to train Noah?" Sam accused. "What do you gain from that one?"

Vlad stared at her, and slowly blinked. He legitimately seemed to be unable to answer—and it legitimately seemed to confuse him.

There was a long moment of awkward silence. No one spoke or moved, except that Vlad moved his stare from Sam to Noah, and then somewhat later, to a point far off in the distance, unfocused.

"I…"

The silence returned after that single syllable from Vlad. No one interrupted; they all just waited to see how Vlad would answer.

"I never had a son…"

He looked back at Noah, who was gaping at him. All of the teens were.

Vlad reached into his pocket and pulled out a rolled-up, worn-out piece of paper. He handed it to Sam and sighed.

Sam looked at it and unrolled it slightly, and she gasped. "This… This is the Infi-map," she said, looking back up at him.

"I pilfered it from Frostbite," he said. "They weren't too pleased with that, seeing as how I used it the last time."

"To try to take over parts of the world," Sam said, glaring.

"Yes, yes," Vlad said. "Well, last time, I commanded the map to bring me to the path to Maddie's heart." Jazz grimaced. "I was brought to the cave of the love ghost, Luster… but… it was empty."

None of the teens knew how to react to this story of Vlad's. They all just looked at him with genuine shock.

"The cave was empty. No love for me. I took that as a sign, finally, that I would never win her. She was always Jack's."

Tucker and Sam shot looks at each other—they knew what Vlad might not have known… Luster was invisible to the naked eye, whether human or ghost. Luster might very well have been in that cave, just keeping silent.

"When I first met Daniel, I was trying to destroy his father's reputation," Vlad said. "But I also always wanted a son. I offered to teach Daniel what I knew, in exchange for him renouncing his father. Of course, he would never do such a thing. And so my bitterness grew. But now, I see how misguided that bitterness was. I should have been searching for my own happiness, not trying to steal it from others. And here, I have been given the opportunity, if only for a little while, to be like a father to this young man. It's stricken me in a way that I didn't even realize until you asked that question."

"Come with us," Sam said, finally.

* * *

><p>The nurse was standing with her back to Danny, writing on a clipboard.<p>

"How do you feel?" she asked, scribbling.

"Pain," Danny whispered, trying not to move his lips too much lest they set the rest of his face on fire with agony.

"It'd feel a lot more painful if you weren't on the medication, believe me," she said, and put the clipboard down. Then she turned around, and Danny was unable to gasp at the sight: it was Spectra. "And it's about to be even worse!"

A black mist formed around her feet and shot up around her as she raised her hands and her skin faded away, leaving a gruesome black shade in front of his bed. "Misery galore," she said, punching him in the stomach. He screamed silently as the pain flooded across every inch of his body. She breathed in deeply and her grin grew wider. "Oh, the wonderful taste of teen in pain. I don't know how I'll ever go back to feeding on depression when this sort of agony is just so delicious!" She slammed her hands into his chest, and more fire coursed through his skin. He was in total agony, and she was feeding off of it. And there was nothing he could do.

"What's the matter, little misfit?" Spectra cackled. "Can't defend yourself? Good. Then this is for all the times you crammed me in that hell-hole of a _thermos!_" She slapped him hard across the face, and he felt like some of his skin must have cracked and fallen off. "Say goodbye!"

"How about YOU say goodbye!" yelled a familiar voice from the doorway. A blast of energy rocketed across the room and smashed into the unsuspecting Spectra, knocking her through the window.

Valerie Gray was standing there, in plain clothes but holding a fairly large ecto ray gun. She glared out the window, then softened up when she saw Danny. "Oh, man," she said. "I heard what had happened to you, and I came to check to see how you were… I wish I'd come a bit earlier." She glanced at the gun. "Pay no attention to that," she said, hiding it behind her back feebly.

"Thank you," Danny choked, still burning with pain.

Valerie smiled softly. "I like your shorter hair."

Danny's eyes widened. Had his hair been burnt off? They must have cut it down to a point where it was all uniform length.

"I just wanted to give you my hopes that you get better," Valerie said. "Since, you know, we're good friends." She glanced at his neck, and her expression turned to curiosity. "Wow," she said. "What's that high-tech necklace you have on?"

"Neck…lace?" Danny rasped. His necklace had burnt off. Had Noah given Danny his necklace so that Danny wouldn't be discovered by the Guys in White?

She lifted it off of his shirt and examined it. She rubbed the metal, and when she reached the top, it accidentally detached. "Aack!" she shouted. "I'm sorry!"

"Okay," Danny coughed out as best he could. "It's okay. Supposed to come off."

Valerie was very interested; she pressed the button in the center of the diamond, and it shot out two arms, becoming a V-shape; she almost dropped it in alarm. "I keep thinking I'm breaking it," she laughed.

Danny felt his ghost sense go off—why hadn't it gone off the first time that Spectra was here? He must have been asleep for it. Spectra rose to the window again, and growled and tackled Valerie to the ground, slashing her ecto ray gun in half.

Valerie tossed off her attacker, and took out a smaller ray gun from her pocket. _How did they not stop her at the door for carrying those?_ Danny wondered.

She shot Spectra, who crashed into the wall and growled. Her tail whipped out and smacked the ray gun out of Valerie's hand and out the window.

"Throw the necklace!" Danny wheezed at the top of his lungs.

"Throw it?" Valerie asked, but she was quick to react when Spectra next attacked. Valerie did as she was told and whipped the necklace at the ghost. Spectra was too close to not be hit. She howled as the necklace sucked her in, and she clawed at the ground for a moment until she fully disappeared into its inner workings, and the necklace flew back towards Valerie, who caught it.

She stared the necklace down for a while in shock, and then turned to Danny. "What… is this?" she asked.

Danny didn't say anything. He just cast a gaze to the ceiling.

"Danny, this is an amazing device—" She was cut off by a loud beeping sound from her wristwatch, and she frowned at it, pressing a few buttons. Her eyes widened as she stared down at it. "But… but I just caught a…" She looked up at Danny.

He remained silent as she walked up to him, and her wristwatch was beeping out of control. She held it up to his forehead, and suddenly it stopped.

"What…?" she asked, looking at the watch. "Is this thing…" She backed away, and it started beeping again.

Danny wasn't sure what was going on, but one thing came to his attention that he had forgotten when Valerie accidentally snapped off the necklace: The necklace guarded him from the tracking devices that located ghosts.

Valerie seemed to come to the same conclusion. She placed the necklace on a table on the other end of the room, and then walked up to Danny with the wristwatch facing him. The watch began beeping faster and faster, and then furiously when she held it next to his forehead. She stared at him, a curtain being unveiled in her mind.

"You weren't just caught in the line of fire, were you," she whispered. "You were fighting it."

Danny lay still, staring unblinkingly up at her. She gathered herself, and leaned down next to his ear. "_I know Vlad's secret,_" she whispered. "_I saw him transform after you left, in the incident with Danielle._"

He was unable to show any emotion he was feeling on his burnt and scarred face; he just lay still and continued to listen. Valerie leaned back again and smiled. "This explains… so much," she said. "How you knew my other 'job' when we did the project. Why Skulker stole the sack of flour to blackmail both of us. Where you went the very first time I chased you… that wasn't a real make-out session with you and Sam, was it." She looked into his eyes. "I could go on. But… I want you to know… that I forgive you. And… I trust you." She turned and walked away.

As she reached the door, she looked back one more time, and blew a kiss. "And _you_… can trust _me_." Then she smiled and continued out.

* * *

><p>As the Specter Speeder blasted off on its set course, Noah stood in the back with Vlad as the latter changed into his ghostly form.<p>

"Now, Noah, there's a few basic things I want to see if you know. Shoot an ectoplasmic energy ray at me, please."

Noah nodded, transformed into a ghost, and threw his hands forward with an energy blast; Vlad held up his hands and absorbed it. "Good," the older half-ghost said, rubbing his palms together. "Your form is excellent. Daniel has been teaching you well."

"Thank you," Noah said, smiling. How could this man have been evil?

"You're very welcome, my boy," Vlad said. "Now, as quickly as you can: Turn invisible and intangible at the same time."

Noah had to concentrate for a split second, but he transformed. "Good," Vlad said again. "Now throw up a shield of energy; move it around and fire at me simultaneously."

Noah did as he was told; there was a small fight of energy rays and shields.

"Perfect," Vlad said. "Can you duplicate yourself yet?"

Noah shook his head. "Danny showed me, but the most I can get is two heads."

"Well, he had to learn it on his own, just from having seen me do it," Vlad said. "I think I can get you to be an expert on that in mere hours."

"Really?" Noah grinned wildly; he'd always wanted to duplicate himself. Ever since he'd seen Danny do it, it had become a personal goal.

"Absolutely," Vlad said. "Here: I want you to stay completely still for a moment." Vlad pulled a cord of purple energy from the air and wrapped it around Noah's arms and waist, and then did the same to his legs. "You're completely trapped now. You can't escape from this predicament. Can you?"

Noah wiggled himself around, trying to break free; he tried to charge up energy to melt his bonds, but the cords absorbed his power. "No…"

"So how do you defeat me?" Vlad asked. "I'm about to deliver the finishing blow. What do you do?"

"I… don't know…" Noah said, frowning. A small bump of turbulence caused him to fall into a sitting position.

"Now, I want you to imagine changing back… but don't do it," Vlad said. "Imagine yourself changing back into your human form." With that, Vlad gestured to his right side; a narrow black disk appeared out of thin air, and flowed upwards and downwards. It seemed to draw another Vlad Plasmius out of thin air.

"Whoa," Noah said.

"You're pretending you are a human," Vlad said, his second figure disappearing. "This time, I want you to imagine transforming back into a ghost—but I want you to imagine it happening like you are a bystander, simply watching. And it's happening right here." Vlad held up his hand, and a strange energy surrounded the area just to Noah's left. "Right in that high-energy zone I'm creating."

Noah nodded. "What do I do?"

"Concentrate," Vlad said. "You don't exist until you appear in that zone. You aren't where you are right now. You're a floating, bodiless mass of consciousness, waiting to be materialized. And you're going to do it somewhere other than where you thought you were."

Noah breathed deeply and closed his eyes.

"No, keep your eyes open," Vlad said. "Stare at that blob of energy to your left. And imagine your human form inside it. Now… transform!"

Noah broke into a sweat from the concentration, and his teeth clenched together tight as he stared into the high-energy zone. He imagined what he wanted—it was a goal he was seconds from obtaining, and he leaped for it.

A strange shimmering came over the area. A strange effect—what looked like thousands of little panels in the air—started to flip over themselves, painting a picture, a perfect image of Noah's ghost form in the high-energy zone. When it was finished, he was both staring at himself floating in the zone, and staring at himself sitting on the floor with the energy cords around him.

"Now shoot me!" Vlad commanded. "Shoot me down with your other form!"

The Noah in the high-energy zone shot a blast of energy, which Vlad purposefully did not defend against; he let himself be hit against the wall with a grin, and the cords holding the sitting Noah disappeared.

"Wow!" Noah shouted twice at the same time. "This is so wicked!"

"Excellent work," Vlad said. "That's a good strategy to use when you're in a pickle. Just add yourself another copy directly behind your attacker, and shoot him in the back while he's distracted with his presumed victory."

Noah nodded. "What was the high-energy zone for?" he asked, simultaneously with himself again.

"You likely wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise," Vlad said. "I created an area in which it was easier for you to manifest a second form. Your second persona is stabilized while he is inside that high-energy zone." He pointed at the Noah still floating in the energy area. "If that zone wasn't there, you would have dematerialized before you formed. It takes a lot of practice to make yourself solid."

"So…" said the Noah in the zone, "If I exited right now, I'd…" He stuck a hand outside the area; it disappeared. When he drew it back in, the hand reformed.

"It's hard to keep those copies of yourself stable and solid," Vlad explained. "So for a while, we'll practice with a high-energy zone to make your clones stick around. Once you feel ready, we'll move to reality, and you'll try to keep your clones alive without any assistance. Then we'll make your clones do completely separate things, like one human and one ghost."

"You can do that?" Noah asked, impressed.

Vlad waved a hand, and the energy zone dissipated. The floating Noah began to break down, dematerializing in the air. Noah fought with all his concentration to keep his clone intact.

"It's all right," Vlad said. "Don't use up too much of your power trying to stabilize the clone; let it go, we'll do more practice."

When the clone was down to just a head, Noah was straining with concentration, breaking a sweat again. And finally, somehow, the floating head stayed in place, without disintegrating. Then the body started to reform under the head; the arms shimmered back into place, and the entire clone was back and completely stable.

"My word!" Vlad exclaimed, faking surprise. He had known Noah would probably be able to keep the clone intact; creating the clone was the hard part. But if he made Noah think that he was exceeding expectations, Noah's excitement and adrenaline would make the lessons go even faster. "That is incredible! I don't even believe it, Noah; you've stabilized yourself without the energy field!"

Noah laughed and high fived himself. "WICKED!" he shouted again.

Vlad smiled and glanced to the front. "How close are we?"

"According to the Infi-map, we're only about fifteen minutes or so away from the portal," Tucker shouted back. "From there, we gotta drive quick to another natural portal that'll appear five minutes later. That one will take us straight to Mississippi—and it'll take us there to a time ten minutes before we left."

"That's like, negative a million miles per hour," Sam said, laughing. "I didn't think it was possible to arrive somewhere before we left."

"Well, it's a good thing, too," Tucker said. "Check this out." He held up his PDA, which was getting a live broadcast from a news station. Vulcrex had been seen destroying gas stations and feeding on them all the way down to the tip of Louisiana. "We'd have been way too late if we'd driven towards it."

"Let's just hope we can make it to the Mississippi portal in time," Jazz said. "Remember, it's about four and a half minutes away from where we'll enter, and we only have five minutes to get there. We can't waste any time."

"Stay optimistic, guys," Noah said. "We'll make it. And if anything gets in our way, we have two powerful half-ghosts here who can get rid of the problem…" He looked at his clone. "And we can have as many more back-ups as we want!"

The Speeder slowed to a stop in the middle of a forest. There were two trees there that grew near each other and looked like the fused into each other; it looked like the sort of place where a natural portal might be. They knew without saying anything that this was the place. "We're here," Tucker said. "In, say, thirteen minutes, the portal will open… and then we're in for the drag race of a lifetime."

"Wait," Vlad said. "My boy, Noah, would you come outside and take a walk with me?"

"What?" Noah said. "I… I don't think we ought to. I mean, the portal…"

"I have a watch," Vlad said. "Well, actually, I have fifty. But I'm wearing one, you see. I'd like to discuss some matters that… that I'd like to keep secret. Would you come with me for a five-minute walk?"

Noah glanced at Sam, Tucker, and Jazz, who all eyed Vlad suspiciously. He glanced back at Vlad, and nodded. "All right. But let's get back quick."

"Of course," Vlad said, and he phased through the Specter Speeder's wall. Noah followed him, and they walked into the woods where they couldn't be heard or seen.

* * *

><p>The next time Danny opened his eyes, he got the surprise of his life.<p>

Dash was sitting by his bedside, flipping through a magazine with a bored look on his face. Danny was staring at him for at least thirty seconds before Dash noticed.

"Um, hi," Dash said sheepishly, grinning when he saw Danny look up. "I'm… uh… I'm glad you're awake. And feeling better."

Danny had been healing rather quickly; he heard the nurses talking about it. It was almost unnatural. He wondered if being half-ghost had anything to do with it. His skin was still raw and in some places he'd had to have grafts, but mostly, he was feeling a lot less pain. He'd been feeling pain even with the painkillers for the past day, but that had subsided. He barely even felt the spots where Spectra had hit him. Of course, he still felt like he couldn't get out of the bed without feeling awful, but it was great to know that even this near fatality was a thing of the past within a week.

However, what Danny found even more baffling than his miraculous speed-recovery was the fact that the kid who'd been bullying him since they met was now waiting by his bedside, perking when Danny woke up, like a happy dog. Why did Dash care enough to visit him?

"I like your shorter hair," Dash offered.

There was an awkward silence. A very, very awkward silence.

"So, Fenton," Dash started, then coughed into his sleeve. "Where did your friends go with the mayor?"

Danny had a sudden urge to sit up. "What?" he said, regaining his voice a little.

"I saw Noah and your sister and friends walking towards your house with Mayor Masters," Dash said. "I was just… wondering if you knew why."

"No," Danny muttered, his brain whirring, trying to figure out what this could be about. Was Vlad brainwashing them or something?

"Well, anyway…" Dash turned towards the window. "I don't really know how to… um…" He seemed distracted. "What is—" He stood up and stared out the window. "I… I remember him!"

"What?" Danny asked again, trying to lean his head over to see.

Dash suddenly dove out of the way as a large, blue-gray figure crashed through the window and hovered in the center of the room on a jetpack. It was Skulker.

"Greetings, young human," he said, staring at Dash. "I remember you. You were the human prey that got away, and I still haven't forgiven myself for that one."

Dash backed off, shaking. Skulker turned to Danny. "Ah, but the true prize is here," he said, grinning. "And what's this? He can do nothing to defend himself. Usually, I would not hunt you in such a condition. But exceptions can be made when I know I'm outmatched, and besides… I can always bring you back to my lair and hunt you later!"

He reached out towards Danny, but his mechanical suit alerted him to an attack coming from behind.

He reached around and threw a punch as Dash tried to jump him, and Dash was knocked backwards into a wall. But he was a football player, and was used to that sort of extreme contact; Dash was back up again and charging before Skulker reached Danny again.

Skulker growled and turned around, firing an energy gun at Dash. But Dash was also a quarterback, and a master of fake plays; he ducked and sprinted around Skulker's side, and then jumped him from behind, knocking off the jetpack. Skulker crashed into the floor from the small fall, and Dash was on top of him, tearing off pieces of his suit with brute strength.

"No! Stop it!" Skulker yelled, and turned intangible just as Dash ripped part of the head off.

The tiny little green blob that was Skulker slid out and landed on the floor, then shook his fist at Dash and flew out the window. "I'LL BE BAAAAACK!"

Danny was in awe of the performance Dash had just made, and then looked out the window as something blocked out the sun.

It was Desiree, the Lunch Lady, Johnny 13, Kitty, the Box Ghost, Ember, Youngblood, and Technus. It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened: they all heard that Danny Phantom was incapacitated, and all of them were ready to give him some payback while he couldn't pay back.

"Dash," Danny whispered. "Get out of here."

* * *

><p>Vlad and Noah came walking back from the forest several minutes later. Vlad had a strange smile on his face, and Sam was immediately suspicious. But, strangely, Noah had the same odd little grin, and he nodded to the three teens as they phased back into the Speeder.<p>

"Where the heck were you two?" Jazz shouted. "The portal's opening any—"

"There it is!" Tucker shouted.

The tree arch suddenly buckled as if there were a strong wind pushing it back. A green swirling mass appeared in the center with a flash of light and a noise that almost sounded like laughter.

"Go!" Sam said to Tucker. The Speeder rose into the air and prepared to fire off.

Jazz suddenly jumped and reached into her pocket. Her cellphone was going off. "It's Dash," she said, confused. "Oh boy—I hope it's not bad news about Danny…" She answered it. "Hello?"

The Speeder blasted into the portal.

* * *

><p>The mass of ghosts grinned at him lying in the hospital bed. Dash stood, paralyzed with fear again.<p>

Danny raised his voice as Dash didn't move. "GET OUT OF HERE. NOW!"

Dash grabbed the jetpack that was on the floor, and, with the wires that fell out of it, he strapped it around himself in a flash. As the first ghosts started to pour through the window, he grabbed Danny around the waist and slammed his other hand into a button that had been revealed on the inside when the pack was torn off. He ran towards the window as the jetpack started to shake and sputter; he dove through the cloud of ghosts, which parted for him as he plummeted to the ground. The jetpack started to roar when they were halfway to the ground, and he blasted off, away from the ghostly lasers that started to pursue him when Danny's enemies figured out what was going on.

An awestruck Danny kept a tight grip around Dash's shoulders as he looked down at the ghosts pursuing them. He leaned back a little bit and said as loud as he could against the wind, "Where are we going?"

"I don't know!" Dash yelled back. "Do you have a safe place in your house?"

Danny stared at the mass of angry spirits not a hundred yards away; they weren't getting closer, but they weren't getting farther. The wind was stinging his skin, but he knew it was nowhere near as bad as what the pain he'd feel if they got caught.

"My house has the ghost shield, but I don't know if we would be able to get it up in time," Danny yelled back.

Dash reached an arm into his pocket. "I have your sister's phone number on here, because of the tutoring!" he yelled. "Is she home? She could put up the ghost shield before we got there!"

"I hope so!" Danny shouted.

Dash clicked a few buttons. "Dash! Dodge!" Danny yelled.

Dash swerved to the right as a blast of energy barreled towards them. He put the phone to his ear. "Come on… Come on… Jazz! Are you at Fenton Works? …Jazz? _JAZZ!_" He slammed the phone shut. "FRICKIN T-MOBILE!"

"Call my parents," Danny yelled. "Here—I'll do it!" He took the phone from Dash, ignoring the pain that came from moving, and dialed his house number. He put the phone to his ear, hoping that his parents would pick up—but nobody did, and the answering machine picked up. "I don't think they're home!"

"Great!" Dash yelled. "So, where do we go?"

"I have one idea," Danny said. "Go to Fenton Works anyway. We'll go into the Op Center and release it! But we'll have to do it fast!"

"Isn't it a freaking blimp?" Dash shouted back.

"It can turn itself into a jet," Danny responded with a little bit of a laugh.

"Gotcha," Dash said. "How are we gonna get in?"

"We'll have to crash through a window," Danny said, grimacing.

He didn't hear Dash sigh, but he felt it against the other boy's chest. Dash looked down at him, smiling. "Couldn't… Couldn't you just… phase us through?"

"What?"

"All right, Fenton, I guess now's as good a time as any to mention that," Dash said. "I know you're Danny Phantom."

Danny fell a little limp in Dash's grip. _What?_ Dash knew his secret, too? If Dash, celebrated dunderhead and D-student, had figured out his secret, how many others had?

"How did you… know?" Danny asked.

Dash veered a little bit to the left. "Wait. Which way is your house?"

"You're going the right way," Danny said. "It'll be hard to miss when it comes into view. But Dash… how did you find out?"

Dash looked around. "How close do you think we are?"

"Stop avoiding the question, Dash," Danny pleaded. "I need to know how you found out, and if you've told anyone, so that I can avoid revealing myself in the future."

Dash let out another sigh. "I haven't told anyone," he said. "I promise. But… it's kind of a long story how I found out, and you don't remember any of it."

"I don't remember any of it?" Danny asked, confused. Then he lit up. "Oh! You mean… the school blackout?"

"I was the only one who didn't black out," Dash said. "It was Luster."

"So how did I give it away, then?" Danny asked. "And how come you were the only one who didn't black out?"

"Um…" Dash laughed humorlessly and nervously. "Can we talk about it when we're somewhere safe?"

Danny nodded. "There it is! Veer a little more left!"

Dash saw it, too, and turned as Danny was shouting. Danny looked back again to see that the ghosts were still as far, and as close, as ever. "I'm going to need to act fast once we get in there," Danny said. "Drop me right after I phase us through."

Dash turned slightly downwards until they were on a direct path towards the Op Center. They accelerated with the slight pull of gravity. "Drop the jetpack when we get really close," Danny said. "I'll fly us the slight distance in. Otherwise we'll crash hard."

"Got it," Dash said, and slid his fingers into the knot around his chest, weakening it. It finally unraveled completely, and he grabbed either end of the wires, holding it strapped around his chest.

"Now!" Danny yelled as they closed in. Dash dropped the jetpack, which aligned itself vertically and shot directly upwards. Danny turned them invisible at the moment they were dropped, and the horde of ghosts turned upwards to chase the jetpack. Danny caught himself and Dash in midair, again ignoring the intense pain, and flew forwards as fast as he could, phasing through the wall of the Op Center. They tumbled to a stop, and Danny jumped up to get to the Op Center Release Button before the angry ghosts figured out that he and Dash weren't attached to the jetpack anymore.

He slammed the button down, and the fixtures highest up on the building snapped off as the blimp inflated above them. Danny then ran to the refrigerator, picking up the Emergency Ham and pressing that button as well. The top of the blimp snapped off, too, as his ghostly pursuers turned towards the blimp. The ship on the bottom expanded and transformed, until jets in the back blasted them off into the horizon. Danny then ran to the controls and hit the Auto-pilot, and an inflatable version of his father popped up on the driver's seat. Danny hit a few buttons to increase the speed and fly in a straight line, and the other ghosts were left far behind.

"All right," Danny said. He slumped against the wall and tried to take his mind off of his aching body. "I think we'll be able to escape them until I'm strong enough to fight back again. That is, if they haven't given up the chase. But we're already out of sight. I suspect they'll give in." Dash walked up and sat down next to him, grinning. Danny smiled back. "And, thank you, Dash."

"You've been saving our butts for, like, ever," Dash replied. "It's about time I was able to repay you a little."

"I… still want an explanation, though," Danny said. "About how you figured out. I need to make sure nobody else finds out."

"Don't worry," Dash said. "It's not something that would happen again."

"Still."

Dash nodded. "Um… you may not want to hear some parts of it."

"I'll live."

Dash took a deep breath in. "Okay. Here goes."

* * *

><p>The Specter Speeder rocketed through the Ghost Zone. "How are we doing on time?" Jazz said.<p>

"We're more than halfway," Sam said. "We're gonna make it with 30 seconds to spare."

Tucker concentrated on the drive ahead of them. "No sign of obstacles yet," he said. "But I doubt much would stand in our way except a full-on assault, and what are the chances of that? No one knew we were coming."

"Why wouldn't we be in danger except for a full-on assault?" Noah asked.

"Real-world items pass through stuff in the Ghost Zone," Sam explained.

"Whoa," Tucker said. "What is _that?_"

An enormous form was ahead of them. Vlad narrowed his eyes at the sight. "It's the Behemoth," he said. "It used to guard the Skeleton Key. Now it wanders freely across the Ghost Zone."

"Is it a problem?"

Vlad nodded. "Yes. Big problem. It will probably attack us. No worry."

"No worry?" Sam shouted.

"Slow down for ten seconds or so," Vlad said.

"What?" Tucker yelled. They were about ten seconds from collision. "Are you insane? We have a time limit here!"

"Listen to him!" Noah blurted, and slammed his hand on the emergency brake button; they slid to a stop.

As Jazz, Sam, and Tucker argued with Noah, Vlad transformed and flew out the front window. The Behemoth was moving towards them, but it stopped when it saw Vlad. "Get out of the way!" Vlad yelled.

The Behemoth growled, but its eyes seemed to go unfocused at the sight of Vlad. It moved to the side and stared at him.

Vlad flew back in. "Hurry up!" he said. Noah took his hand off the button and they resumed their course. The Behemoth growled again at them as they passed, but it did not pursue.

"How did you _do_ that?" Jazz asked.

"I have some influence here in the Ghost Zone," Vlad said, shrugging. "I challenged the Behemoth some time ago and won, and he's respected me as his superior since then."

"That would be when you stole the Skeleton Key and freed the Ghost King?" Sam shot.

Vlad grinned. "Let's not get too hung up on details," he said.

Jazz pressed a finger to the front windshield, pointing. "There it is!" she said. "Come on!"

"It's not going to disappear, darling, don't worry," Vlad said. "We didn't waste thirty seconds on that creature."

The portal seemed to be shrinking as they approached, but it was open enough that they could sail through easily. It disappeared behind them several seconds later.

"That was too close," Sam said. "But we made it. Tucker, activate the ghost tracker!"

Tucker punched a few buttons, and the tracking screen popped up on the dashboard. "Let's see," Tucker said. "That was easy—got him. There's a Scale 10 ectoplasmic entity approaching us, about 50 miles to the north." He adjusted their course.

"Scale 10?" Sam said, gaping. "Isn't Danny only a Scale 7?"

"He's been moving up," Tucker said. "Like he's getting more powerful. But he's still only a scale 7.3. Noah is at 6.8. And Vlad is at 7.5. So this is still the most powerful thing we've ever seen. I wonder if Scale 10 is the maximum."

"It is," Vlad said. "Anything with more power wouldn't have a physical form."

"Explain that to us later," Jazz said. "For now, let's go."

"I'll be at the back, waiting for you to turn around when he's in sight," Noah said. "That's the plan? I fire and then I use my fire abilities to try and guard us while you lure him away?"

"That's the plan," Vlad said. "I will be assisting you also."

"Thanks!" Noah said. "I don't care what anyone else says about you. You're a good guy."

"Well, thank you, my boy," Vlad said. "I'll quickly admit I've been acting like a child with my little war with Danny. But that's all in the past, isn't it, hm?"

Vlad suddenly yelped and flinched as Sam punched him hard in the arm. He turned around in a bit of a rage and called out, "What was that for?"

Sam shrugged, smiling sweetly. "It doesn't matter. It's in the past!"

Noah glared at Sam, but sat with his legs folded in the back of the Speeder. Vlad laughed. "Yes, well I suppose you had reason to do that."

"You're absolutely right," Sam said. "That's for almost killing me and Tucker with ecto-acne. I'd hurt you more if you didn't have superpowers."

"We're closing in," Tucker said, interrupting the exchange. "He's moving crazy fast. More than two miles a minute, looks like. We're 44 miles from impact."

"All right, then," Vlad said softly. "We'd better all get ready."

There was a silence that lasted several minutes as they all hoped for the best when they finally met up with Vulcrex. The seconds didn't pass by like hours, but they were significantly more packed with dread and anticipation.

Eight minutes went by, and then Tucker cleared his throat. "Two miles. We'll be coming on it at a slight angle." He pointed in the direction that Vulcrex would appear in.

"Then angle us away a little bit," Vlad said. "Put us in his path and then turn around so Noah can face out the back."

Noah grinned and stood in a fighting stance.

Sam walked up to him and put both her hands on his shoulders. "Hey, Noah," she said. "I know you're feeling confident. You certainly look like it. I think that's great. Just be careful, you know? And good luck." She smiled and kissed him on the ear.

Noah suddenly turned red, and he staggered on the floor. "Whoa," he said, putting a hand into the hair on his forehead. "Where… am I?"

Sam giggled. "That's cute," she said. "Go on. Go get 'em."

"How close are we?" Noah asked, turning around.

"Less than a mile away," Tucker said. "I think… I think I see him. And we're right in his path."

Noah suddenly lost all confidence. "What?" he shouted. "When did we get so close? I—"

Vlad went to his other side and leaned down in front of him, whispering something. Noah straightened up and nodded, and Vlad stepped aside. "Open up the back!" Vlad said, turning to Tucker.

The back of the Speeder opened up and Vulcrex was in plain view, a football field away. He turned as if to avoid the Speeder.

Noah nodded to Vlad, who nodded back. Noah set his feet into the floor and out of his hands erupted a burst of fire that intercepted Vulcrex's path. Vulcrex slowed to a stop and stared down the Specter Speeder.

He looked like he was made of rock that moved around his skin like the crust of the Earth. There seemed to be a glowing red mantle in his center, visible through the cracks on the craggy brown rock that flowed on his skin. His face, though, was constant; a straight line for a mouth and two glowing red narrowed eyes.

Noah shot another blast of fire at Vulcrex, and Vulcrex responded with an explosion that billowed across the ground directly at them. Vlad threw up a shield on the very edge of the Speeder while Noah used his fire abilities to try to control the assault.

"Go!" Jazz yelled to Tucker; Tucker started up the Speeder and accelerated towards the closest portal to the Ghost Zone, as dictated by the Infi-map.

"Is he following us?" Sam asked, looking at the ghost tracker. Her heart leapt. "Yes! Yes he is!"

"How long do they have to hold Vulcrex off?" Jazz asked. She grabbed the Infi-map and scanned it. "Oh! This is _great!_ It's not far at all! We just have to stall for… it looks like we're already a third of the way there!"

The chase continued, with almost consecutive fireballs the size of buildings blasting after them. Vlad turned to look at Noah; the strain looked like it was finally beginning to take a toll on the boy. "Keep it up!" Vlad shouted. "Almost there! Keep fighting that fire!"

Finally, the green portal opened up as just a dot in the distance. Vulcrex was almost on top of them already, but Tucker still slowed down.

"What are you slowing for?" Jazz screamed, clutching her hair.

Tucker turned violently to the left, and Vulcrex followed; then he turned back towards the portal. "We should go through it right as it closes!" Tucker responded. "Then if he realizes his mistake in following us, he can't go back through!"

"That doesn't help if he catches us!" Sam yelled.

Vulcrex was closer to Noah than the front of the Speeder was, and he was putting heavy pressure on the teen. Vlad turned and saw Noah's legs start to buckle with the strain of holding back the stream of fire, and he knew he had to do something. He duplicated himself, and one clone flew out the back and shot a ray of energy at Vulcrex.

The energy ray simply passed into Vulcrex's body without moving him. But the ghost's head turned and he waved his hand, making the air between them explode in a direct path towards Vlad's clone, which vanished on contact. But the distraction gave Noah enough time to catch his footing.

"Ten seconds!" Tucker shouted. "Keep holding! EIGHT SECONDS!"

The back of the Specter Speeder was melting off. Parts of the hatch that had been lifted up was dripping onto Vulcrex's body, hissing and bubbling and then evaporating.

Finally they blasted into the Ghost Zone, and the portal closed as Vulcrex passed through directly behind them. The fire ghost turned and stared at where the portal had been, suddenly comprehending what had just happened. He turned at the Speeder, flying away, and seemed to be talking, but there was no sound; just what looked like steam billowing from his mouth. He then blasted after them.

Sam jumped into the air in the Speeder and pumped a fist. "YES!" she shouted. "We did it!" She ran over to Noah and hugged him. "Noah, you did it!"

"Where'd we come in?" Jazz asked as Sam ran back up to the front. "Where are we near?"

Noah looked around. "What in the…?" He turned back around. "This is where my portal is!"

Jazz, Sam, Tucker, and Vlad all turned to look at him. "_Your_ portal?" they all said together.

Noah looked back again in case he had to ward off Vulcrex. "Yeah. If we were going the other way, we'd have ended up right where the portal my parents built is. If we have time, you guys could see my house!"

"Does England have a ghost problem?" Sam asked.

Noah shook his head. "Nope. I'm careful with the portal. My parents built most of it, but it broke when they tried to start it. They disassembled it because it was too risky to continue—it destroyed our entire house the first time. But I stole the blueprints and made some modifications… my parents still don't know about that one. I kept it a secret when I got my powers." He took his stance again as Vulcrex approached. "When I took up the project, I expected to have to do some major revisions. Strangely enough, though, everything in their calculations seemed to be right, except for one little problem: The ecto-catalyst wasn't strong enough. With some quick research, I discovered that the ecto-purifier needed to be mixed with some combination of methyl ester, benzoic sulfilimine, and crystalline xanthine alkaloids. Funnily enough, these are all very common chemicals. They were actually all together in some brands of diet cola in the 1980's."

Sam and Tucker exchanged knowing glances, remembering Danny's story of what happened when they had contracted ecto-acne.

"So I got the portal working, and out of an incredible wave of stupidity likely brought on by the euphoria of having completed my experiment, I curiously stuck my head through the portal to see what was behind it." He laughed. "Thing was, it hadn't finished charging up yet. I got zapped pretty bad. Good thing I came to my senses before my parents went up to check on me."

The three other teens were all very invested in Noah's story. Strangely, though, Vlad looked very unhappy. He walked back over to Noah again and whispered with the boy again. Noah again nodded to him, and took his fighting stance again. As Vlad withdrew, Sam saw a glimpse of something red inside Vlad's jacket. It looked familiar.

"Where do we lead him?" Sam asked. "We're not close to Frostbite, are we?"

Noah turned around again. "Swerve thirty degrees left! Follow the Pink River!"

"Pink River?" Sam said as Tucker turned. "Sounds hideous."

"What's this about, Noah?" Vlad asked.

"We'll be arriving really quickly if we're where I think we are," Noah said. "Tell me when you reach the Fountain Temple."

"I already see it!" Tucker said, and he directed the Speeder downwards slightly.

"All right!" Noah said. "Here goes everything!" He concentrated as hard as he could, and with a shimmer of light, he duplicated himself almost immediately.

Vlad laughed and clapped his hands. One of his forms turned invisible and flew towards the ground as they crossed over what Noah had called the Fountain Temple. There was water pouring from the top and running down each side of a four-sided pyramid of stairs with an entrance on one end. Meanwhile, Vulcrex passed by the temple, not noticing Noah's clone descending inside. He was almost within firing distance.

The Noah inside the Speeder yelled back to the gang, "This is where I spent most of my Ghost Zone time. There are ghost warriors who deal strictly with water here. I found another half-ghost who lived in the Ghost Zone—she was able to manipulate water, too. She serves as their queen, and I'm good friends with her. I should be able to convince her to help us!"

"Should I turn around and fly over the temple again?"

"Yes, but not yet. I'll tell you when they're ready." Noah tuned his mind both to keeping an eye on a possible attack from Vulcrex and finding his friend Megan Wright in the Fountain Temple.

Vulcrex was holding off on his attack; he might simply be following them to see if they knew a way out. Or he was waiting until he was close so that he didn't have to waste power. Whatever the reason, it was a good thing he wasn't firing: Noah was not as powerful, being focused on a clone as well as his original self.

"Now!" Noah yelled after about half a minute. "They're getting ready to attack!"

Tucker swerved in a 180, then turned upwards and rocketed over Vulcrex. Vulcrex turned almost as quickly and followed, catching up more from that stunt than before. He held up a glowing red hand and they could sense him building his energy.

"Faster!" Noah yelled, blasting fire out the back to try to increase their speed as much as he could.

"This is as fast as I can go!" Tucker yelled back. "Crossing over the temple in ten… nine… eight… seven… six…five… four… three… two… one and a half… one…"

As they passed over the temple, and flew over the Pink River again, the river foamed, as did the lake it fed into. What looked like hundreds of green primitive warriors burst out of the river; they looked much like Zoras from any Zelda game, differing only with two fins on their back that looked almost like tiny wings. In fact, the Zelda creature looked like it could have been designed on a sighting of this ghost, if the designer hadn't known what he was seeing.

They all raised their hands in a formation that looked like the front end of a jumping-jack. The entire river burst out of the ground and slammed into Vulcrex as he passed; all along the river, more water was drawn in by other warriors and sent up as water evaporated. Vulcrex was unseen among the steam, but he wasn't breaking free of the fluid. The pink water kept blasting him with what looked like greater pressure than a fire hose, and it went on for almost a full minute while the Specter Speeder floated back to watch. Noah's clone disappeared from the Speeder; they saw him standing next to a young human woman on the steps of the Fountain Temple.

The warriors finally stopped shooting the water at Vulcrex. The steam disappeared, and they saw a brown form fall from the sky. The inner heat had gone; he was just a rock now, and he fell to the ground and shattered.

A tense silence followed; Sam and Tucker expected the ghost to rise back up and continue destroying everything. But their eyes moved to the Ghost Tracker. There were thousands of ghosts around… but when they set it to only recognize ghosts of Scale 9 or higher, there were none.

"I think… it's dead," Tucker said. He paused for a moment, then added, "Again."

* * *

><p>Danny's eyes were locked on Dash as the blond finished his story. "And I knew you wouldn't remember any of it," he said. "So I decided to keep the secret that I knew your secret. I put the thermos back in your hands. And I opened the ghost book to a page on Luster and put it on Sam's table so you could figure out what happened."<p>

Danny was stunned. This was… interesting, to say the least. But why had Dash been so afraid to tell it?

"But nothing romantic happened between us," Dash said for the fifth time. "You just really liked being around me for a while."

"Wait," Danny interrupted, something not clicking. "You said Luster knocked me out with an energy blast?"

"Yeah," Dash said. "That's why I had to take the thermos and use it."

Danny's gaze never wavered. "Dash… You're leaving something out."

"What?" Dash fought his face from turning red as best he could. "Why would you think that? No, that was everything."

"You couldn't have seen him," Danny stated simply. "You wouldn't have known where to aim the thermos."

Dash worked his jaw up and down. "I… took the glasses that you were wearing."

Danny shook his head, but still didn't look away. "They'd broken from contact with the floor."

"That happened… afterwards," Dash said slowly.

"When?"

Silence.

"Dash… what really happened?" Danny's hand moved a little closer and brushed against Dash's fingers. "Just say it."

Dash finally made unwavering eye contact with Danny. "Luster did something to you," he said. "I couldn't see what was happening, but you just got this crazy look on your face and you… jumped me and… kissed me." His ears flashed completely red. "Then I could suddenly see him."

"Oh," Danny said. He had been somewhat expecting it, but still…

"Sorry," Dash mumbled, rubbing his ears with one hand, keeping the other close to Danny's.

Danny smiled. "No. That's okay. I'm proud of you for having beaten Luster."

"Thanks."

Danny slid his hand fully under Dash's. The jock stiffened and glanced sideways at him, but didn't remove his hand.

Danny waited without moving, to see if Dash's hand would withdraw.

It didn't.

* * *

><p>They sailed through a portal that led them directly to the outskirts of Amity Park, holding the Infi-map and cheering. Vlad smiled. "Please," he said. "Come to my mansion. I insist. I'll treat you all to dinner."<p>

Sam laughed. "I think that's all right," she said. "Thanks, but I'll pass. I just want to get back to Danny and tell him, and then relax."

Noah smiled sweetly at Sam. "Come on, Sam!" he said. "Let's go!"

Sam bit her lip. "Well…"

Jazz shook her head. "I'll walk to the hospital," she said. "I'm going to go see my little brother." She opened up her phone as she hopped out the open back. "And I've got to return this call from Dash."

"We really should go, too," Sam said. "Come on, Noah! Don't you want to see Danny?"

Noah looked back at Vlad. "Yeah, but… Jazz is going to tell him about the whole thing. We can visit him later. The Mayor's invited us to a feast, though!"

"Noah, this is not like you," Sam said. "Why don't you care about your friend?"

"It's not that," Noah said. "It's just… Vlad… All those times he was talking to me… he was asking me if I wanted to live with him. As his son. …And I want to!"

Sam was aghast, and Tucker was just awestruck. Vlad smiled. "You do?"

"Yes," Noah said, walking over to Vlad and hugging him.

Sam sputtered. "But… but… wait, though, don't you—don't you want to see if Danny's all right first?"

"He's all right," said a young girl's voice behind them, inside the Speeder.

Tucker and Sam whipped around to see Danielle floating behind them, and they grinned. "Dani!" they both exclaimed.

"I checked on him," Dani said, smiling, floating horizontally on her stomach with her head in her hands. "He was sleeping like a baby at the hospital just five minutes ago!"

Almost at the same time, Jazz ran back into the Specter Speeder with a relieved but still panicked expression, breathing slightly heavily. "Guys!" she said. "You're not going to believe this. It's… crazy. Danny and Dash had to evacuate the hospital. All of Danny's enemies came to beat up on him while he was weak… and they escaped on Skulker's jetpack. They're in the Op Center Jet right now, blasting off just to keep moving! And Dash knew Danny's secret!"

Jazz stopped talking as she noticed that none of them seemed to be paying attention to the fact that Dash knew about Danny. They were all staring at Danielle, who had a frightened expression on her face as she stared at Jazz.

"Why is Danielle here?" Jazz asked nervously.

Suddenly a connection was made in Sam's mind about the red item she'd seen inside Vlad's jacket, along with the way all the ghosts had been acting strangely. She made a dive at Vlad's coat, but he jumped out of the way. Dani and Noah both then advanced on her threateningly, and Vlad snarled, "What was that for?"

"Tucker! Jazz!" Sam shouted. "Vlad's got the crystal that Freakshow had! He must have found the pieces and put them together!"

Vlad stomped a foot on the ground. "HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT?" he growled. He put a hand on Noah's shoulder and looked at Danielle. "Take them in! We'll just say they were killed in the pursuit of Vulcrex. My plan is almost complete and I can't have you three protecting Daniel from my control!"

_Danny fought the mind control once,_ Sam said. _He can do it again! But… shouldn't Noah and Danielle be able to fight it, too? How do I free them from—_

But she already _had_ freed Noah. She'd done it several times, and each time, Vlad got angry and had to reprogram him!

She threw herself at Noah and locked herself in a kiss with him. Noah's eyes went unfocused again, and he suddenly snapped back into reality as Sam got dragged away by Danielle. "Noah!" she shouted. "Don't look at Vlad! He's got a mind-controlling gem!"

Noah stared for a moment, not comprehending.

"Look at me, my son!" Vlad called, opening his robe, careful to keep his own eyes averted.

Noah started to turn, but his instincts suddenly caught up with him, and he took in Sam's shout. He smiled with his back to Vlad, and said, "What was that, Father?"

Vlad grinned. "Take them," he ordered.

Vlad didn't notice the clone Noah manifested behind his back. With one swift move, Noah swept his legs under Vlad's to lift him, and then blasted him in the back of the head, sending him spiraling into the wall. The older man hit the side of the Speeder and fell, unconscious.

Noah combined his two forms back into one and fought off a screaming Danielle who then assaulted him. "Get the jewel!" he called.

Vlad was stirring, but Sam got to him and pulled out the large red orb, still cracked where it had shattered the first time. Since Vlad didn't seem to have spent much time putting it back together, it shouldn't be difficult to destroy it again. She placed it on the ground, lifted a combat boot, and stomped as hard as she could.

The gem shattered everywhere, and Danielle suddenly came back into her own mind. She shook her head to clear it, and stared at Vlad with anger. "What is he doing here?" she shot angrily.

"He hypnotized you," Sam said as Vlad lifted himself up to look feebly at his competition. "But now's your chance for payback!"

"Don't have to tell me twice!" Dani said.

Vlad transformed into his ghostly alter-ego and stood defiantly. "I'm still more powerful than all of you combined!" he yelled, duplicating himself into five, spreading the length of the Specter Speeder. "What makes you think you stand a chance?"

"I know exactly what makes me stand more than a chance," Danielle said. "A nice little trick I learned from Danny!" She took in a deep breath, and then screamed with a devastating sonic wave like a higher-pitched version of Danny's Ghostly Wail.

Four of the Vlads in front of them melted backwards and faded; the other one exploded out the back of the Specter Speeder and crashed through the side of the movie theater and out the roof. Danielle stopped and laughed, falling to her knees and transforming back.

"Danny didn't teach me that one," Noah said, gaping. Then he turned to Sam. "Sam… thank you for getting me out of that mess."

"It was nothing," Sam said, and then noticed Noah's smile falter. "No, wait," she said. "I meant that it wasn't hard. It was _really_ easy, actually." She smiled at Noah. "And I enjoyed it. I thought you should know that."

"I enjoyed it, too," Noah said, and shuffled himself closer.

Sam met him halfway, and they drew into each other again for another kiss.

A roar in the sky drew Tucker and Jazz's eyes up as they smiled, and the Op Center Jet descended above them. It landed a few yards away, and Danny hobbled out, assisted by Dash.

"Guys," Danny said, smiling. "I have something to tell you."

Sam and Noah broke apart and looked over. "They know that Dash knows," Jazz said, smiling and shrugging. "Sorry. I already told them."

"That wasn't what I was thinking about," Danny said.

Tucker lifted an eyebrow at Danny's grin. "What, then?"

Danny put a hand on the side of Dash's face and then lifted himself up on his toes as Dash leaned down and they met in a kiss. All four of the other teens just gawked, jaws dropping and eyes nearly popping out. The boys' kiss lasted for a long time, and then they drew apart, smiling into each other's eyes.

"That might be the biggest surprise I've had in my life," Tucker said. "And that includes you stepping into a machine that gave you superpowers, Danny."

"I know," Danny said. "I don't even know how it happened. It just… did."

"Well, that's how love's supposed to be," Jazz said, tilting her head and smiling with watery eyes. "And you know that I'll always support you. No matter who you love."

"I think we can all agree on that," Sam said.

"Hey, my best friend back home had two moms," Noah grinned.

Dash and Danny seemed to be eager to make up for the time they'd missed. They leaned back together for another kiss. Sam and Noah followed up and locked lips, too.

Tucker and Jazz looked to each couple. Then Tucker turned to Jazz and raised his eyebrows. Jazz laughed and pecked him on the cheek. "Nice try," she said, smirking.

"Worth a shot," Tucker said, shrugging and laughing.

-THE END-


	8. Episode 59: Phantom Planet Part 1

_Author's Note: I took a fair amount of this verbatim from the real Phantom Planet. However, since it's a TV show, I added the descriptive components; i.e. the non-dialogue parts. I also added original and non-original characters in scenes where they hadn't been before. Anyway, the point is, however obvious it may be: I don't own whatever I quoted. Enjoy!_

_P.S. I don't usually share the minutiae of my life with readers, but… My mind was just COMPLETELY BLOWN from finding out that the guy who voiced Vlad was the principal in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. (And Salem, the cat in that show, was Norbert the beaver in "The Angry Beavers.") If you liked those shows, too, you understand how completely mind-blown I feel right now! (Also, if you didn't know, Taylor Lautner is Youngblood.)_

EPISODE 59—PHANTOM PLANET, PART ONE

In the lifeless rings of Saturn, something was moving. A small robot reminiscent of Star Wars technology was picking up green rocks from a large rock orbiting Saturn, and placing them into a container. It flew towards a spaceship near the asteroid and deposited the container onto a pedestal, where the rocks were moved to an analysis chamber. A red light moved back and forth across the material, which tested positive on the scanner.

"Analysis conclusive!" said a holographic Maddie Fenton. "Asteroid composed entirely of unique anti-ghost element, 'Ectoranium!' The negative effects of which can only be felt by ghosts."

"It will be most effective in making anti-ghost weapons and ease Master's takeover of the Ghost Zone," said a second holographic Maddie.

"And I shall be the one to tell him the good news!" said the first Maddie.

"No. I shall!" the second one stated.

"_I_ shall!"

"Your resolution is far too low and your bandwidth is far too large!"

The first Maddie gasped. "Why, you holographic—!" She pounced on the second Maddie and attacked her.

Meanwhile, above them, a ghost portal blasted into existence, and none other than Vlad Plasmius sailed out, holding a strange rolled-up map and puffing out his chest.

"What a glorious morning!" he exclaimed. "Defeating Frostbite and pilfering the all-powerful Infi-map… _again!_" He opened the map, and purple projections of doors filled the space around him. "If this keeps up, I should be ruling the galaxy by lunch!"

An energy ray hurtled across space and shattered the top of his helmet. The Specter Speeder flew towards Vlad, containing the five teens of the ghost-fighting team—Danny and Noah in ghost forms, Sam, Tucker, and their newest member, Dash. Danny took a microphone and channeled the frequency into Vlad's helmet. "Kitchen's closed, Plasmius!" he yelled. "Give us back the map!"

Tucker shot Vlad backwards into space with an energy blast from the vehicle while Danny and Noah donned helmets and flew into the closed-off back section of the repaired Speeder. "Let's rock!" Danny joked. Noah threw a palm to his face, but the helmet was in the way.

Sam lifted a fist. "Three… two… one… _punch it!_"

The side door flew off of the Specter Speeder; Noah laughed to himself momentarily wondering how science would explain a door orbiting Saturn.

Vlad shot energy blasts at both of them. They both dodged, and Danny shouted, "I know you're a lost guy, Vlad, but no map is going to help you find your way!" He charged up an energy ray of his own and fired it; so did Noah. "You need therapy for that!"

Vlad threw up a shield, but the deflected shots blew up an asteroid near him and he was thrown to the side.

Noah tried to shoot fire from his hand, but nothing happened. He stared at his hand until it hit him. "Oh yeah. You need oxygen for fire."

Danny had no such troubles; he lifted his arms and formed an enormous snowball. He shot it at Vlad, still off-balance, who was frozen solid on the impact.

Danny flew up to him and passed an invisible hand into the ice block, pulling out the Infi-map. "Seriously, dude…" The Speeder flew up to him and Noah, merging them back into the ship. Danny stuck his head out and finished: "…Therapy."

Vlad blasted apart his frozen container and pursued the Speeder, firing ray after ray of energy at them. The Speeder swerved by Vlad's satellite, which took the blasts instead. The first few shots did nothing to the hard metallic outer shell, but eventually an energy burst hit the fuel cell, and a flame burst from the hole.

"The fusion reactor!" Vlad exclaimed. "If the flames reach it, it'll explode!"

He flew intangibly into the large orbiting device and boarded an escape vessel as the entire machine shook. "Taking my map, destroying my satellite,_ mocking my mental health…_ it's time I finally finished off Danny Phantom once and for all!"

His vessel left the ship and passed through the closing ghost portal through which he'd arrived. The satellite exploded viciously, and the shock waves billowed through space, pushing against the asteroid that Vlad had been studying. Several asteroids were pushed out into space—a few of them larger than any Earthly city—but the largest by far was the Ectoranium asteroid which flew on a direct collision course towards Earth.

* * *

><p>Danny reached into his wall with an intangible hand and pulled out his secret diary. Dash smiled, looking on. "That's a clever place to hide a diary."<p>

"Yeah," Danny said. "I've got some interesting stuff in here." He reached in and pulled out a pair of Spooktacles, a Fenton Thermos, an old, dusty map of the Ghost Zone, and a ragged teddy bear. "This is Fuzzy Fenton."

"Wow, he's… so…" Dash scratched his head.

"Dilapidated?" Danny suggested.

"Sure, let's go with that."

"I've had him since I was born. He ought to be."

"Do your parents ever wonder where he went?"

"They threw him out when I was eleven, when his chest got torn open," Danny said. "I rescued him and hid him under my bed. When I got ghost powers, he moved to a safer place." He handed Dash the diary. "Look inside if you want. It's not your normal kid's diary. I actually started it shortly after I got my powers."

Dash flipped a few pages into the front.

_Dear Diary,_

_I have superpowers. No, really. Stop laughing. I—_

There was an ink splotch over the entire rest of the page.

"The pen turned intangible while I was writing," Danny explained. "The ink inside the pen didn't. I had to rip out the next twenty-six pages."

Dash chuckled and turned forward a page.

_Dear Diary,_

_Sam changed the lunch menu to be ultra-recyclo-vegetarian._

"I remember that!" Dash laughed. "That was horrible."

_Unfortunately, this angered some sort of lunch ghost. What the heck? Why is there a Lunch Lady ghost who can control meat? How many ghosts are there in the world? And why are they not all as forward as this one was? I mean, if these ghosts were here all the time, it seems like they would be noticed by the news. I guess it all has to do with the Fenton Portal, huh. It's a curse and a blessing that gave me my powers._

"This page is what I wanted to show you," Danny said, reaching around and flipping forward a couple dozen pages. "It's… kind of embarrassing, but you asked me if I'd ever suspected I was gay or bi. So…"

It was maybe two-thirds of the way through the diary, and the writing only went three-quarters through. Dash scanned the page carefully.

_Dear Diary…_

_I finally got the hang of that duplication trick. I can make myself into two clones! I'm going for more, soon, but it's kind of a strain on my powers, and I was wiped out yesterday after I practiced for just ten minutes._

_So… This is something I've been worrying about. I think Sam and I might be getting closer. But I don't know that for sure. And I don't know if I want to. I mean, she's great and all, but we've just been really good friends for a long time. Sometimes I think of her as almost as much of a sister as Jazz. And sometimes I think I really like her! But I've been looking at other girls too, and it worries me whenever I look at them, because, well, I have no idea of how good of a kisser I am. I wish there was an easy way to_

"The writing stops there because I had a sudden realization," Danny said. "Turn to the next page."

_Dear Diary,_

_I just realized how I could find out, but… it's kind of weird. No, it's really weird. But for some reason I really wanted to. To find out how good of a kisser I am. Um… I duplicated myself and practiced kissing on myself. I mean, that's not really THAT gay. We all touch our lips all the time! It's not gay when I lick my lips. It's not gay when my top lip touches my bottom one. So… yeah, I made a clone and we kissed. I think I'm pretty good, actually. It's a little bit intuitive. I just closed my eyes and imagined I was kissing Sam. It was really odd, though, because there was two of me, so I was kind of imagining two Sams. Anyway, it felt good to me, so I think I'm good at it._

_I'm a little concerned about how much I liked it, though. I kissed myself for almost half an hour._

"That's pretty much the only hint I had to myself," Danny said, trying to rub the warmth of the back of his neck as Dash looked up. "Until you started describing what happened with Luster and… I started imagining it and getting a little… excited."

"That's really interesting," Dash said. He shook with restrained laughter. "And kind of hot, I gotta admit."

"I did it more after that," Danny said. "I just didn't write it in my diary. I kept telling myself it was because I needed practice. But I get it now… I secretly enjoyed it. Especially when I transformed in one of my clones and then it was like my human half was making out with my ghost half."

"That's awesome," Dash said, grinning. "I wish I could do that."

"You wish you could make out with my ghost half?" Danny asked, raising an eyebrow. "Well, good news. You can!"

"Ha," Dash said. "I see what you did there."

"I know what you meant to say," Danny said, sliding an arm over Dash's shoulder. "I just turned it into what I wanted to say."

"Nice," Dash said. "Danny… Go ghost."

"Of course," Danny said, smiling softly with his sky-blue eyes, which quickly turned grass-green as he transformed.

Dash leaned towards him and kissed. Danny returned it excitedly, moving his hands up Dash's back and breathing in sharply through his nose. They stayed together for a good ten seconds, and then Danny lifted both of them into the air and hovered slightly above the bed. Danny's lips felt Dash's go into a smile.

They stopped only when there was a knock on the door. Danny brought Dash down to the bed and turned back human. Dash stood up and moved to a chair as Danny placed all his items back in the wall; they were secret, even from Sam and Tucker. But since he'd been going out with Dash for a month now, he figured it was okay to tell secrets. Dash revealed to Danny that he watched the romance channel with Pooky, his little dog, so Danny felt like revealing something back in return.

Danny transformed human again and opened the door to see his mother standing there. She had been about to knock again. When she saw Dash, she smiled and waved at him. "Dinner's ready in an hour," she said. "Dash, can you stay over?"

"Sorry, Mrs. Fenton," Dash said. "I got relatives coming. I would have loved to stay, though."

"Dash," Maddie said seriously, folding her arms in together. "You know you're welcome around here any time, right?"

Dash grinned and nodded. "Yeah, I know. Thank you."

"All right," she said, more lightheartedly. "I'm glad. This is your second home if you want. I'll see you when you go. Have fun!"

She closed the door softly behind her, and Danny turned to Dash. "She feels bad that you're keeping me secret from your parents."

"Yeah, I know," Dash said. "But… I can't tell them yet."

"Believe me," Danny said. "I understand about keeping secrets from parents."

"Right. Haha…" He looked at his watch. "How did you tell your parents?"

Danny shrugged. "It just sort of came up one day after you left. My parents have always suspected that I was keeping a secret of some kind, and they asked me if it was that I was gay. It was actually really convenient to be able to pass this off as having been the secret I was keeping from them."

"That is good," Dash said. "Well… I gotta go not tell my parents. Walk me out?"

"Of course!" Danny got up and held out his hand; Dash took it, and they walked towards the door.

"I love spending time with you, Fenton," Dash said. "I really do. But it's kind of hard to insist on seeing you. I hope you understand?"

"I understand," Danny said. "But always remember… If you ever want to have me over, I could be invisible for you."

"That's true," Dash said, smiling. "You can sneak past my parents and visit me any time you want."

"That's one of my job benefits," Danny said, winking.

They reached the door, and Dash took his jacket from the coat hanger and slipped it on. "Have a good one, Fenton," he said, and kissed Danny again briefly. He stepped out the door into the warm June afternoon.

* * *

><p>"So Dash hasn't told his parents yet," Sam said, biting into a veggie burger.<p>

"Well… no," Danny said. "He doesn't have to when his boyfriend can go invisible."

"But it's still kind of sad."

"To be honest, I'm surprised his parents haven't figured it out," Tucker said.

"What?" Danny said. "Don't tell me _you_ knew he was gay. No one did!"

"Well, I mean, really," Sam argued as Noah sat down beside them with his tray. "He _does_ have a dog named Pooky, with whom he watches the romance channel."

"And he has a stock of rainbow-colored teddy bears," Tucker pointed out.

"And he's a football quarterback, so he specializes in sweaty male physical contact," Sam added.

"And balls," Tucker continued.

"And finding open men," Noah suggested.

Danny laughed and had to stop eating for a moment. "You guys are awful."

"We try," Tucker said.

Danny glanced over his shoulder at the popular table, where Dash still sat, talking with all his friends. Dash glanced back, too, but made sure not to look for too long.

"I just wish we could sit together at lunch," Danny said, twirling his fork in his peas. "It sucks that he can't be himself at school."

"Strictly speaking, he probably could be," Sam said. "Gary's out, and he's not bullied."

"Yeah, but Dash is worried about losing his friends," Danny countered. "And being teased in the locker room."

"Football season's over," Noah said. "If he said something now, the reaction would be bound to die down before the next season."

"And he doesn't want his parents to accidentally find out," Danny argued.

"We get it," Sam said. "Trust us, we understand. We're just giving reasons why it could be very soon that he can tell anyone."

"How do you think his parents would feel about it, anyway?" Tucker asked.

"I don't know," Danny said. "They seem… nice enough. But they're… really, really, really overprotective. His mom is a little smothering, too. And they just want their son to fit in and be happy. Which, being gay, he might be… you know, targeted."

"Okay," Noah said, "but like, overprotective how?"

Danny shifted nervously in his seat. "Well… they're overprotective for the same reason that Dash was such a bully and had so many problems."

"What?" Noah said, and all three audience members to Danny's story leaned forward. "What do you mean?"

"Dash… had a brother," Danny said.

"He had a brother?" Sam asked. Her eyes softened into sadness. "He… _had_ a brother?"

"Yeah," Danny said, speaking softly and staring down at the table sadly. "He had a younger brother. When he was seven and Dash was eight… Dash's parents… had a huge fight… and Dash's brother… was really upset, and he… grabbed the keys to the car, told Dash 'I'm going out to sea,' and drove off with the car. At the age of seven."

When nobody commented, Danny continued, his eyes filling up a little with tears. "He drove the car into the lake."

"Oh my god," Sam said. "That's… so sad… I didn't… Oh my god, that's awful."

"A couple bystanders saw it happen," Danny sniffed. "Apparently the door was still swinging open, and one of them heard him shout part of a sentence: 'setting sail,' before it went into the water. Someone tried to swim under to help him, but the impact had…" He paused. "Dash's parents are really overprotective now… and Dash became more aggressive around others and more reclusive and childlike when by himself."

"I can't believe no one ever knew that," Tucker said. "That's horrible… I feel so bad for him…"

"I wonder what Dash would have been like if his childhood wasn't scarred like that," Danny mumbled at the table. "He's great around me now. He might've been like that forever." He looked back up at his friends' heartbroken faces. "They returned the body, and the kid's favorite stuffed animal, named Polly. Dash kept it in his room for a while, but he said one day it was just gone from its place on the shelf, and neither he nor his parents had any idea where it went. He still gets sad when he remembers that it got lost."

Danny's ghost sense went off suddenly; so did Noah's. They both looked around, and then both of them used their powers to split off an invisible clone.

"I AM TECHNUS! MASTER OF ALL THINGS WITH CIRCUITS, WIRES, AND CONSTANT INFURIATING ERROR MESSAGES!"

_Why is the Casper High Cafeteria so popular with ghosts?_ Danny wondered.

As Technus flew into the cafeteria, raising his hands and abducting everyone's personal electronics, Danny's ghost clone turned visible.

"Hey, Technut!" he shouted. "You don't want Dash's. He's got T-Mobile!" He fired an energy ray at Technus's head.

Technus built the cellphones and PDAs into a wall in front of him, which absorbed the energy and fired it back. Danny caught it in a ball and neutralized it. "You've got a few new tricks!"

"I am constantly upgrading!" Technus said, grinning. "Try this on for size—"

But Danny never learned what Technus had for him to try on for size. Two red, spinning metal disks came out of nowhere and struck Technus in the back. He cried out in pain and fell to the ground on his hands and knees.

"Take it, Download!"

A girl in her teens, in a red and black jumpsuit with metal fringes and with a large red ponytail, was standing in the doorway. She had a white "V" on her shirt. Another teen in the same style jumpsuit rode into the cafeteria on a skateboard. He wore a backwards gray cap, sported freckles, and had a white "D" on his chest, presumably standing for "Download." A bigger, long-haired blond teen with the same build as Dash popped into view behind him with a white "T" on his shirt.

"Um," Sam said. "Who are _they?_"

"I don't know," Tucker said, "but those are the coolest jumpsuits I've ever seen!"

Danny glared at him, and Tucker backed up. "I mean, other than yours. Black is very… slimming."

"Adolescents! How dare you?" Technus bellowed. "And another thing! The high-tech look is _my_ bit!"

The one the girl had called "Download" pulled up to a stop on his skateboard and held up his wrist; up popped a gray square that shot a beam of red light at Technus. When it struck the monologuing ghost, he was sucked into the device like what happened in the Fenton Thermos or Noah's necklace.

"Ghost guy gone," Download said smugly. "Area safe. Have a righteous day."

Then they struck poses and yelled, "MASTERS' BLASTERS STOP DISASTERS!"

"Masters' Blasters?" Noah asked, raising an eyebrow.

The girl stood up straight again and pressed a button on her wrist, then held it up. A projection flowed into the air above her wrist—like a T.V. screen had suddenly formed in the air. Vlad Masters' face appeared in the screen, and he started to talk.

"Greetings, students! I hope you've enjoyed this presentation of Amity Park's newest teen ghost-fighting team: Masters' Blasters! As mayor, I provided city funding for this top-notch troop. Equipped with the latest teen technology, they're going to stop ghosts and succeed where Danny Phantom has so obviously failed!"

"Teen ghost-fighters?" Sam reiterated.

"Teen technology?" Tucker restated.

"Where Danny Phantom has so obviously failed?" Danny repeated, frowning.

Vlad put on a smug smile on the recording. "My plan is very simple. Out with the old, and in with the new. _And the old should give up now if he knows what's good for him._" The projection receded into the girl's wrist.

The cafeteria was silent for a moment. Then the silence was broken by a sharp derisive laugh from Dash.

"What's that for?" asked the scrawny kid named Download, stepping on the end of his skateboard and shouldering his ecto-gun.

"Waitwaitwait. Who are you?" Dash asked, putting his hand over his eyes.

"I'm Vid," said the girl with the red ponytail. She seemed to be the leader. "This here is Thrash—" she pointed to the bigger guy— "and that's Download."

"Nice names," Dash said. "And—tell me this isn't what you're thinking. You're thinking you're going to replace Danny Phantom?"

"Well, yes," the girl said, putting her hands to her hips. "We're the new sheriffs in town. We're up-to-date, we're what's happening, and we're taking it from here."

"Danny Phantom's lost his touch," Download said, pointing at the white-haired ghost floating above Danny Fenton's table. Noah's clone was still remaining invisible, watching.

Dash snickered. "Screw that!" he bellowed, and the entire cafeteria turned towards him. "Danny Phantom is, always was, and always will be better than you are, ever were, or ever will be!"

A cheer resonated throughout the cafeteria, and the Masters' Blasters backed up. Thrash raised a hand, and the cheering subsided. "I suppose, then," he said in a scratchy, "cool teen" voice, "you didn't notice our demonstration just now? Taking down, in seconds, the ghost that Danny Phantom had made no progress against?"

The human Noah leaned over to the human Danny and whispered something in his ear. Danny's eyes lit up, and he grinned and nodded to Noah.

"Brilliant," he whispered back. "Any time you're ready!"

"Danny Phantom forever!" Dash shouted, giving a thumbs-up towards the Danny in the air. Another cheer broke out.

The Masters' Blasters smirked and turned to walk out, but suddenly, a blast came from the other end of the cafeteria.

They turned and charged weapons as Noah's ghost clone sailed into the room. He had been keeping himself completely secret during his entire stay—this was the first time anybody had ever seen Noah's ghost form except for Danny's crew and Vlad.

"I hear there's a new ghost-fighting team in town!" Noah roared, acting a perfect ghost villain. "Let's see how they stand up against _me!_"

Thrash fired a ghost net from his wrist device; Noah threw up a wall of flame that burned the net into ashes. Then he fired a cannon of flame that scorched the ground in between the cafeteria tables until it made contact with Thrash and knocked him back out the door.

Noah then began firing energy blasts at the cafeteria walls and destroying tables as kids ran out of the cafeteria. Vid shot her energy gun, and Download whipped out a pistol that fired intense energy rays. Noah simply split himself into two and flew to either side, confusing the pair of teen ghost-fighters long enough so that he had time to fire a burning ball of energy from both of his ghost halves, exploding under Vid and Download and knocking them backwards into the burned cafeteria wall.

Danny was impressed by how much Noah had progressed in battle. He flew up to Noah and yelled, "Hey, kid! What's your problem?"

"What's _your_ problem, you prepubescent stuck-up fashion disaster?" Noah called back. "Why're ya such a goody-two-shoes? Team up with me and we could take over the entire world. You're as powerful as I am—we'd be powerful enough! What's stopping you? Your juvenile moral sense? What's morality compared to world domination?"

"Sorry, punk," Danny said, "but I don't do world domination. And you're not going to, either!"

"Try and stop me!" Noah jeered, firing his signature fireball.

Danny parted the flame with a wave of cold energy that struck Noah and sent him spiraling in a block of ice to the floor. He shattered on impact with the ground, staggered to his feet and multiplied, then continued to fire energy rays at Danny.

Danny threw a shielding orb over himself. Their human halves were discussing battle strategies below, and thus Noah knew what Danny was about to do. Danny's ghost half rushed towards Noah with the energy sphere around him.

Noah phased into the ground just before impact, but nobody noticed due to the explosion resulting from the impact that Danny's orb of energy had on the side of the cafeteria. A cloud of dust billowed out, and when it cleared, Danny was standing there alone, slapping the cap onto a Fenton Thermos and giving a thumbs-up.

Vid, Thrash, and Download sneaked quietly out, greatly irritated, while cheering teens swarmed Danny Phantom. Dash was in the front, and he lifted Danny up and tossed him up and down, shouting, "I knew you were better than those pretentious nobodies!" he yelled.

When the kids finally dispersed, Danny Phantom flew away, fading into nothingness when he was out of sight. Danny Fenton remained, secretly high-fiving Noah.

Dash walked up to them, looking around to make sure no one was eyeing him suspiciously for talking to Danny. He winked. "That was awesome, guys," he said. "That was seriously ingenious."

"You can thank Noah," Danny said, bumping him with an elbow. "It was his idea!"

Noah's shoulders slumped. "But… I guess I can't really be a hero anymore, huh."

"What do you mean?" Dash asked.

"I've just made myself out to be a total villain," he replied.

"Oh, who cares?" Danny said. "You can still do awesome things. Heck, everybody used to think I was evil, but I still kept fighting ghosts."

Noah shrugged. "Maybe."

"And you can invent stuff like nobody's business," Sam said. "You could beat the pants off of ghosts without even using your ghost powers!"

"Yeah!" Tucker agreed. "Just think of the powers as an added bonus for pranks and free movies."

"Thanks, guys," Noah said and finally smiled a bit. "And besides… I'll probably be going home for the next school year. So I can be a hero there!"

"That's the spirit," Danny said. "Come on, guys, let's head to class."

Dash peeked around; nobody was watching. "Hey buddy," he whispered. "Invisible kiss?"

Danny nodded and split off an invisible clone; he pecked Dash on the lips and then they both went their separate ways to class.

* * *

><p>For the next few days, Danny Phantom and the Masters' Blasters crew went head-to-head. It looked like Vlad was letting loose more ghosts than usual so that the Masters' Blasters could make a statement. When the Masters' Blasters captured the Fright Knight, Danny did a number on Prince Aragon; when they got Johnny 13 and his shadow, Danny got the better of Spectra and Bertrand; when they beat Desiree, Danny defeated Skulker. Danny didn't know what he'd do without Noah; along with supplying crucial anti-ghost devices, Noah also gave the impression that Danny had the upper hand by defeating the Masters' Blasters a couple times, only to be "captured" by Danny again. And even though Vlad knew exactly what Danny was doing, the mayor still couldn't do anything about it—for if he revealed Noah's secret identity, they would reveal Vlad's.<p>

Vlad definitely did, however, attempt to retaliate. On one occasion, the Masters' Blasters burst into Fenton Works, claiming they had evidence that Jack and Maddie were harboring a ghost fugitive. However, upon scanning the entire household—including Danny and Noah—they had no such readings, and were forced to let the Fentons go. Once again, this wouldn't have been possible without Noah, whose necklace masked the ghost aura that he and Danny gave off.

When Jazz and Danny picked up their parents, they were laughing it off. "Thanks for getting us out of jail, kids," Maddie said. "I knew there must have been some sort of mistake."

"I was never worried," Jack proclaimed. "I was _this_ close to tunneling us out of there with my trusty ice cream spoon!" He held up a spoon. "But then they… um… served ice cream, so, well… you know…"

Maddie smiled. "Well, back to work on the new and improved Ghost Portal. Come on, kids." They drove back home and went down to the lab as a family.

Danny's parents had been reworking the Ghost Portal. It actually looked like it did when Danny got his powers.

Jazz stroked her chin as she stared into it. "Um… You don't suppose, if I went in there and did whatever you did…"

Danny laughed. "Um… I don't know. Good question, though." He thought about it for a moment. "I don't know if it would work, though… I mean… if it were that easy to get superpowers…"

"I'm not willing to risk my life on it, of course," Jazz said. "I've already got what I need to be happy: a dedication to studying. I'll leave the super-villain battles to you, little brother." She kissed him on the cheek and walked back up.

Sam, Tucker, and Dash walked down to the lab as Jack and Maddie walked upstairs for a meal and a break. "Wow," Dash said, looking at the ghost portal. "Looks like your folks are moving right along."

"They can work fast when they want to," Danny said. He laughed and added, "And when my mom takes charge of the project."

Dash twirled his necklace around his finger—Noah had given necklaces to all six of the core of the team (himself, Danny, Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and Dash) as a precaution. He looked into the depths of the portal. "How did your parents _do_ this, anyway?"

"Apparently they'd been trying since college," Danny said. "And they almost did it back then, too. Except that I think the other ingredients in the diet cola threw it off."

"In the what?"

"And it gave Vlad a hideous case of ecto-acne," Danny laughed. "You should have seen his face!"

An energy beam swept across the room and struck Danny; another one followed shortly after and knocked Noah off his feet. Vlad sailed into the room in his ghost form and snarled, "Having a laugh at my expense, are you?"

Danny and Noah both transformed, and each stood defiantly in front of their peers. "What's wrong with you_?_" Danny shouted.

"I've come to finish you two off once and for all," Vlad said decidedly. He continued to attack.

Danny and Noah fought back easily; Danny deflected the attacks while Noah lunged upward over the shield and blasted a fireball into Vlad's chest; he staggered backwards and breathed heavily.

"You're really challenging us both—together—on home turf?" Danny shouted. "You're losing it, aren't you?"

"When I said, 'out with the old and in with the new,' I didn't expect the old to _cheat_ its way out of a loss," Vlad said. "And you of all people should know that when someone cheats… _I AM THE SORT OF PERSON TO IMMEDIATELY CHEAT BACK!_"

Suddenly Danny and Noah both felt invisible hands on their collar; Vlad had made invisible clones. How could they not have seen that coming? _Stupid!_

Vlad tossed them both back into the Fenton Portal. When they struck the ground and tumbled to a stop far inside the machine, they saw another Vlad clone standing inside, which promptly punched the _ON_ button and vanished.

The portal glowed green and electricity surged through it. In the instant before anything happened, Danny suddenly had the presence of mind to know that there was one thing he could do.

He blasted Noah with a ball of energy, the explosion of which sent Noah flying out of the portal; he landed outside it just as the machine exploded with energy and Danny was struck with an intense pain. The ghostly half of his DNA was stripped off; his white hair turned black. The portal exploded, and everything else faded away in his vision.

* * *

><p>When Danny opened his eyes, Dash and Noah were standing above him, both struggling back what looked like the slight urge to tear up. Noah stumbled back and sat down on the floor against the wall when he saw Danny awake, and he looked up at the lab ceiling, trying to let the tears soak back into his eyes. Dash picked up Danny and held him close and tight; Danny's weak arms came and hooked around Dash's waist.<p>

"How long have I been out?" Danny mumbled to Dash.

"A couple hours."

Danny looked around. "What… happened to Vlad?"

Noah sniffled. "Gone. And not coming back."

"What happened?"

"I… I almost… killed him."

There was a silence as Sam, Tucker, and Jazz exchanged nervous glances. Danny stared at Noah, waiting for him to continue.

"Dash ran up to Vlad and punched him hard in the head," Noah went on. "And then when I realized what had happened… I saw you lying in the destroyed portal motionless and… I thought he'd killed you. I… didn't know when to stop. I was just so angry. I burned him, hard, and then I started physically attacking him, and I think I broke several of his ribs, if ghosts have those." He swallowed and continued. "Jazz had to tackle me to get me to stop. He was coughing blood when he flew out."

_Holy crap._

"I'm sorry," Noah said.

"Hey, don't be like that," Danny said. "If he'd killed you, I would have killed him, too." He tried to smile.

It was Noah's turn to stare now. "Your hair…"

"What?" Danny ran his fingers through his hair—had it been burnt off again like what had happened with Vulcrex? …No, his hair was still the same length.

"You can't feel it," Noah said. "You need a mirror."

"What happened?"

Jazz pulled out a little mirror, and Danny glanced inside it. "Whoa," he said, feeling it and rustling it. It was still only a little more than half the length he usually had it, due to the burning it experienced last month, but the length wasn't what was interesting about it now. His hair had a white streak in it that ran like a wreath around his hair; as far as he could see with the hand-mirror, it looked like it was in the middle of every strand of hair; not at the tips or roots.

"My ghost powers," Danny murmured. "Does this mean…"

"I think they're gone," Dash said, tears running down both cheeks.

Danny looked over at the portal; it was utterly ruined. He closed his eyes, tried to breathe normally, and started to think about what this really meant for him.

He could still fight ghosts. Sam and Tucker did, and they didn't have powers. But there was no more walking through walls, or overshadowing people to get out of trouble, or flying when he was late in getting somewhere, or…

He felt tears welling up behind his closed eyes. Dash sniffed and saw the tears; he picked Danny up in his arms, and hugged him tight.

Danny let a few silent tears roll down his face; somehow, even though his closest friends and sister were right next to him, it felt good to have a small, silent cry on his boyfriend's shoulder. He sighed deeply, and Dash pulled himself back for a moment with his hands on Danny's shoulders to look into his eyes.

"I'll stand by you," Dash said. "It doesn't matter to me what percentage of ghost you are. And I know we'll find some way to get your powers back."

"I don't know if that can be done," Danny said honestly. "But… thank you for offering to try." He leaned up and locked lips with Dash; his chest hurt slightly from the explosion inside the Fenton Portal, and as Dash ran his hands along Danny's back, he felt slight holes in his charred shirt.

When Dash pulled away, another thought came to Danny's mind. "Dash… if I was really out for a couple hours… you were supposed to be home for your mom's meatloaf night by dinner."

"I called my parents and told them one of my friends was hurt," Dash said. "They understood."

"Why am I not in the hospital?" Danny wondered aloud to anyone.

"Mom and Dad said you would be fine," Jazz answered. "I think they were worried that it would be legally their fault. But you were really just unconscious… we knew you were going to wake up. The real problem… we couldn't tell them."

"My ghost powers, you mean," Danny said. "Er… my ex-ghost-powers." He sighed again. "I guess Vlad won, then."

"No," Noah said, standing up angrily. "NO. That disgusting amalgamation of trash is not going to win. We are still going to outdo them! I'll… I'll dress up as you! I'll clone myself and dress one up, and I'll beat myself! And I'll do everything that you do!" His voice was shaking and growing in volume. "Vlad is _not_ going to win! Not after a dirty, conniving trick like that! I'll reveal him to the world! What does it matter if everyone knows our secrets? Your powers are gone, and I don't care if anyone knows about me!"

Danny didn't want to say _no_—he was flattered that Noah was so indignant on his behalf. Yet at the same time, he didn't want to say _yes_. Vlad deserved everyone to know his secret. But it wasn't going to be easy to reveal that. Vlad would just clone himself and wreak havoc on the town, and then Mayor Vlad would save the day, and it would be clear that they were two separate entities.

"Hold off on that," Danny said. "We're going to need evidence if we want to reveal him."

"I'll give everyone evidence!" Noah screamed. "I'll take down the techno redcoats, easily, and I'll disable them completely. Then, I swear to God, I'll start to kill him, and he'll have to defend himself once he realizes I'm fully prepared to burn his face off! And then everyone will know!"

"But you'll make yourself the enemy," Danny said. "Especially if Vlad reveals you back. Noah, I know this is awful—trust me, it's me that it happened to—but we have to be rational about this."

Noah nodded and sat back down; Danny could see his brain still whirring, trying to figure a foolproof way to ruin Vlad.

"I admire how calm you are," Jazz said. "Are you feeling okay, besides…?"

"I'm fine," Danny said. "Dash, you should get home. You could probably still make dinner, right?"

Dash checked his watch. "Yeah. I guess I could. But…"

"I'm okay," Danny said. "Really. I'm fine. You can see me some other time."

Dash nodded slowly. "Walk me out? …Can you walk?"

Danny struggled himself into a standing position, and was able to support himself. "Yeah," he said. "But you'll need to help me with the stairs."

"Can do," Dash said. "Come on, bud."

Dash helped Danny hobble up the stairs, one hand holding one of Danny's and the other on Danny's hip. They reached the top of the stairs and walked into the hallway, and approached the door.

"Thanks, Dash," Danny said. "I'll… see you again soon."

"You too, Danny," Dash said, and delivered another quick kiss. He turned to approach the door at the end of the hallway, but froze.

Two people had been walking outside the window, but had stopped and stared in shock at Dash and Danny when they kissed. They pressed themselves against the window with mouths agape. The woman had short red hair and freckles; she was unfamiliar, but the man looked like an older version of Dash.

"Oh, God," Dash whispered, shrinking and backing down the hallway.

* * *

><p>"Has Danny come down yet?" Tucker asked as he walked back into the Fenton's house after a stop back home.<p>

Noah shook his head and glanced up at the stairway.

"It must be so hard to deal with," Sam said softly. "He lost his individuality and his boyfriend in the same day. Usually you have to trade one for the other…"

"I can't believe Dash's parents reacted like that," Tucker said. "I mean… banning Dash from ever seeing Danny again? What is that going to solve?"

"You can't reason with these people," Sam said in disgust. "No matter what you tell them, there's always a religious reason to counter it. And even using religion on them doesn't work! 'Jesus said to love everyone!' 'Yeah, but not _fags!_ God hates those!'" She kicked a trash can incredibly hard; it dented the ceiling. "If God himself came down and told them to let Dash be, they'd claim it was Satan in disguise!"

"I can't believe they came to check on Danny at the same time Danny was bringing Dash up the stairs," Noah huffed. "Talk about the worst timing ever."

Jazz stood. "I'm going to go up to check on him."

Sam glanced over to her boyfriend, still leaning against a wall and twiddling his thumbs. "Noah… You don't suppose…?"

"What?"

"You don't suppose you could… overshadow…?"

Noah grimaced. "I don't know what that would do to the family. I could… overshadow one of them and maybe start a huge fight. Or I could overshadow both and make a very temporary solution."

"Or you could steal Dash away during some nights," Sam said, snapping her fingers.

Tucker shook his head. "They'd probably check on Dash just for that reason. I wouldn't interfere with this in the ghost way."

"I wonder if they'd have been like this if Dash's brother was still alive," Sam wondered aloud in a mutter. "Why does the world have to be so messed up?"

Maddie walked into the room with clenched fists. "Hello, kids," she said as civilly as she could manage; she looked, though, like she was about to explode. "Danny still upstairs, then…" She stared at them all with an inner fire, the intensity of which eclipsed even her ghost-fighting rage. "I'm going to the Baxters' house."

She walked out swiftly and slammed the front door, hard.

* * *

><p>Noah floated overhead silently. He didn't like eavesdropping that much, but this was an exchange he really had to witness.<p>

The front door opened, and when Mrs. Baxter saw who it was standing there, she tried to close the door again.

Maddie stuck her foot in, and wrenched it open with brute strength, easily overpowering the wholly unintimidating ginger housewife standing before her.

"You can get off my property right now," Mrs. Baxter said as menacingly as she could muster.

"I'll get off your property as soon as you get off your son," Maddie shouted. "You are a disgrace to the parenting community!" She was yelling over Mrs. Baxter, not allowing her to speak yet. "I'm not here only because of my son. Absolutely not. When _my_ son's happiness and well-being are put in danger, I'd rage against the source any day. But a parent depriving their only child of the life he wants to live—because people wrote thousands of years ago that an invisible man in the sky didn't LIKE IT?"

"Well, look who's talking about invisible men in the sky!" Mrs. Baxter shouted back. "You're letting your son indulge in a disgrace to the civilized community! I do not allow such barbaric indecencies in my household, nor do I permit those to whom I gave birth to commit such vulgar crimes!"

Maddie raised a hand as if to slap Mrs. Baxter hard across the face, but she restrained herself, and used the hand to jab a pointing finger at Mrs. Baxter's eye. "Now, you listen here, Cindy, and you listen well," she snarled. "It is not up to you to decide what your son's fate is. LET ME FINISH!" She advanced on the younger woman, backing her against the stairs inside. "You did not choose his career for him. You did not choose his gender. You did not choose his favorite color—which hand he writes with—and he did NOT choose his parents, though with the indecencies against humanity that YOU'VE committed, I'd be willing to bet all I have that he wishes he COULD choose his parents—and that he'd choose people who accept him for the way he was born!"

"PEOPLE ARE NOT BORN HOMOSEXUALS!" Mrs. Baxter shrieked. "THEY ARE BORN EVIL, AND AS A PARENT, YOU TOO HAVE A DUTY TO WASH YOUR CHILD FREE OF HIS SINS IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD!"

Maddie walked straight up the stairs past Mrs. Baxter, despite her screams and threatened police calls. She came down hauling Dash by the arm, pushed him out the door, and then turned around and jabbed another finger dangerously close to Mrs. Baxter's face. "I usually restrict myself to tearing _ghosts_ apart molecule by molecule," she hissed. "But you almost made an exception right there. Dash is leaving for his boyfriend's house of his own free will, and I must admit, I'd really _love_ to see you try to take this up with the chief of police and his husband." She slammed the door hard again, took Dash's hand and walked him back. Dash was crying, and he leaned his head against Maddie's shoulder; she patted him softly and lead him down the street.

Noah smiled, admiring Mrs. Fenton more than ever right now. He phased into the Baxter's house to see the aftermath, and saw Mr. Baxter folding his arms and shaking his head slowly. Mrs. Baxter walked over to the phone, ranting. "I am most _certainly_ calling the police! What an arrogant bitch! How dare she suggest she knows what _my son_ needs? I don't care if he's happy on Earth! They'd all change their tunes immediately if they could catch a glimpse of the fires of hell they're going to burn in!"

_Fires of hell, eh?_

With a flick of his wrist, Noah set the entire perimeter of the room on fire. Mr. and Mrs. Baxter gasped and threw themselves at each others' arms, looking around nervously at the fire. Mrs. Baxter was still clutching the phone, and started to dial it; Noah casually shook a wrist to blow it up and waited to see the reaction.

Mrs. Baxter fainted when the phone burst into flames and disintegrated; she fell to the floor, and Noah didn't care to see a couple hours of attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from her husband. He put out the fires and flew invisibly out, following Dash and Maddie home.

* * *

><p>A knock came on Danny's door. Was it Jazz again? She'd just left ten minutes ago. No, it must have been his mother. "Come in," Danny said. "I told Jazz I wasn't hungry for dinner."<p>

"Don't worry," said the voice Danny was most hoping to hear. "I'm not hungry, either." Dash walked in and sat down on Danny's bed.

Danny sat up and threw himself against Dash. "What are you doing back here?" he asked shakily.

Dash sniffled. "Your mom came to my house… She didn't win the argument; it's impossible to win. She pretty much took me and left."

"I'll have to remember to thank her for that," Danny mumbled against Dash's shoulder. He pulled himself off for a moment. "But I knew there was no way they were going to keep us apart anyway. I know we're fourteen, and there's a lot of our lives still ahead of us… but I really, really love you, Dash."

"I love you, too, Danny," Dash said. The obligatory kiss ensued, and each of them started to slip their hands under each other's shirts. They stayed with lips brushing against each others', breathing together, relaxing together. They leaned back against Danny's pillow holding each other tight, not intending to let go, and they fell asleep.

* * *

><p>Danny and Dash wandered downstairs the next morning still holding each other. Danny looked around for the usual few strips of bacon; it wasn't there. "Where's Noah?"<p>

"He stayed over at Sam's last night," Maddie said.

"That boy's a true charmer," Jack said. He turned his thumbs towards his chest and called out to anyone listening, "Just like his old… uncle seventy times removed or something! He's got the Fenton Charmer genes!"

This was, in fact, entirely untrue, but Danny and Noah had agreed not to break that to his parents. It would bring up the question of why Noah _was_ here. The real reason of which was to meet Danny Phantom…

Everything reminded Danny of his lost powers. Especially when his mother came up to him and tousled his hair. "By the way, Danny, I think it's cute what you've done with your hair!"

"Yeah," Jack said. "Kinda reminds me of that band I was in back in the eighties; the Skunk Punks!" He inexplicably produced a newspaper article with a large headline.

Danny read the headline out loud. "'The Skunk Punks Stink?'"

"Yeah, we walked right into that one," Jack admitted.

"I'm glad you're accepting your fashionable side," Maddie said, rubbing his head again. Danny scowled at this misconception that he couldn't refute.

Jazz pushed the Alpha-Bits over to Danny as he sat down. "You all right?"

Dash sat down next to Danny, who smiled. "As long as he's here," Danny said.

Jazz rolled her eyes. "You're so corny. But I'm glad you're okay."

"I wonder if they'll be at school," Dash murmured.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Jazz said, winking. "Noah promised to… _scout_ the premises before school. He'll let you know if there was any parent activity."

Dash nodded joylessly and stirred his cereal, looking more at Danny than his breakfast.

"I won't let them take me away," Dash said. "You know that."

"I know that," Danny said, and he pecked Dash on the cheek and started on his breakfast.

"I'll drive you guys, then," Jazz said. "Are you guys… going to tell anyone else now? Like Kwan?"

"I don't care who knows now," Dash said confidently; Danny smiled slightly. "Especially if it pisses off my parents."

"All right," Jazz said. "Just don't do anything without thinking."

"Jazz, you've tutored me before," Dash replied. "You know that everything I do is without thinking."

They finished their breakfast, and Jazz drove them to school; they both sat in the back seat, gazing into each others' eyes in case they wouldn't see each other for a while. But when they got there, something else grabbed their attention.

Noah was flying towards them, completely visible. There was a pirate ship floating above the school—Youngblood's, it looked like. Noah glanced around to make sure no one was looking, and then landed in the front seat and transformed human.

"The Masters' Blasters are bound to be coming," Noah said. "Youngblood just arrived."

"Youngblood?"

Danny turned to Dash and quickly explained, "Kid ghost who thinks he's a pirate; he's got a skeleton parrot on his shoulder all the time. We fought him when he took all of our parents, teamed up with Ember."

"Oh, yeah," Dash mumbled. He looked pale. "I wish I'd seen him…"

"What? Why?"

"Nothing."

"What should I do?" Noah asked, biting his lip.

"Help Youngblood do whatever he came to do," Danny said. "Just don't let the Masters' Blasters win. I don't care if the school get destroyed in the process." He leaned back further and hooked his hand tighter around Dash's.

Noah laughed. "Well, Vlad did promise to pay for any ghost damages on public property. Youngblood hasn't seen me in this form—he doesn't know who I am. I think I'll go make a pact with him." He transformed back, turned invisible, and sailed out of the car again.

Jazz looked back. "Guys?" She looked freaked out of her mind—and it _definitely_ wasn't like Jazz to take her mind and eyes off of the road like that.

"What?" Danny asked, leaning forward.

Jazz turned up the radio.

"_If immediate action is not taken, our entire planet will be completely destroyed."_

Danny jumped out of his seat. "WHAT?"

"_We estimate we have one week before impact." "The fate of the human race is at stake. One week—use it wisely."_

"There's an asteroid," Jazz breathed. "On a direct collision course with Earth." The car was rolling to a stop; she angled it off the side of the road. "One week until impact."

There were sounds of destruction near the school; Youngblood flew away with a bulging sack of stolen goods, with Noah trailing behind him and blocking the attacks from the Masters' Blasters. The pirate ship sailed off into the horizon with haste.

"That can't be possible," Danny said slowly.

Jazz was still looking at the road ahead of her as if she was still driving; her hands were shaking on the wheel. All of their heads were spinning.

Was this the end?

Danny's hand moved back over to Dash's; the two hugged tighter than ever as they looked at the deceivingly cheery blue sky, which could soon be blotted out by the last thing they ever see.

"We can stop it, right?" Dash whispered.

"We'll have to come together as a world," Danny answered. "Not worrying about who's right and who's wrong about God and politics… I hope we can do that."

* * *

><p>Vlad smiled in his office and stroked his cat. His bruises and burns were all almost fully mended—he'd always been a quick healer. He assumed it had something to do with being half-ghost.<p>

So the world was going to be destroyed, eh?

Or was it the perfect opportunity to turn everything around, and in one swift move, take everything he'd ever wanted—Maddie included?

He threw his head back in the practiced laugh of an evil genius. With Danny out of the way, he wouldn't even have to worry about dealing with that annoyance. Everything was perfectly in motion.

The cogs had begun to turn, and he was holding the crank.

_to be continued…_


	9. Episode 60: Phantom Planet Part 2

EPISODE 60—PHANTOM PLANET, PART TWO

"As news of the approaching asteroid—which some are now calling the 'Disasteroid'—circulates around the globe, countries are combining their greatest technology to stop the oncoming threat!"

They watched videos of three gigantic missiles being launched into space, each with at least two different flags inscribed on them. They rocketed towards the Disasteroid, and exploded hard on impact; a cloud of green smoke billowed out all around it.

People in the streets cheered, but Danny and his friends knew better than to cheer before they were completely certain that an enemy had been conquered; indeed, it was not over, as the asteroid plowed through the smoke seemingly undamaged, and continued to fly towards Earth.

The people in the streets all cast their gazes to the ground. "Sadly, it appears that our best may not be good enough," continued the newscaster. "And speaking of not good enough, let's go live to Fenton Works!"

"Thanks, Shelly," said Lance Thunder, standing in the Fentons' Ghost Lab. "I'm here ringside while a privately funded mission to stop the Disasteroid is underway."

Danny turned the TV off; he couldn't stand to watch Vlad stand in their lab with that smug look on his face. Noah had insisted upon going, to keep an eye on Vlad, but Danny and Dash stayed in Danny's bedroom.

"You think this is gonna work?" Dash muttered.

"Oh, yeah," Danny said. "Vlad couldn't mess up this opportunity to put himself on the highest pedestal in the world. He'll take all the credit for the project."

"He did pay for everything," Dash pointed out.

"True," Danny said. "But not even _he_ wants the entire world to be destroyed."

"You think Noah will be able to keep his temper?"

"I think so. As long as Vlad doesn't—"

There was suddenly a loud screaming from downstairs. Danny and Dash exchanged glances and then bounded down the stairs.

"WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?" Noah was shouting. "CALL IT OFF! CALL THEM OFF—NOOOO!"

"What was that?" Jack's voice came. "You'll have to speak a little louder. What?"

"The coordinates were wrong!" Noah moaned. "That wasn't the Disasteroid you just fired at—"

There was an explosion as the asteroid burst into a thousand pieces… and then a larger asteroid floated past the spaceship seconds later.

Noah slammed his headphone set on the ground. "WHY DIDN'T YOU HAVE ANYONE DOUBLE-CHECK THE COORDINATES?" he shouted at the top of his lungs to Vlad. "You've doomed the _entire earth! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?_"

"It wasn't my fault Jack Fenton messed up," Vlad said, shrugging.

That set Noah off. He jumped _much_ farther into the air than he should have jumped if he wanted to avoid detection. His fist collided with Vlad's face with such ferocity that the older man flew twenty feet backwards, tumbling on the ground until he smashed into a machine on the other side of the room and dented it.

Noah continued to advance on Vlad, but Jazz grabbed him by the arm. "No!" she hissed at him. "He may still be the world's only chance!"

Vlad picked himself up, brushing off the assistance of Lance Thunder and his crewman. He glared fiercely at Noah. "The young boy simply had a misunderstanding," Vlad said. "The misunderstanding being the one responsible for this accident… of whom the identity is not secret."

He then walked over to Noah and whispered in the boy's ear, "I'm just kidding, you arrogant rat. The real misunderstanding you had was that I own the media and am about to make your life a living hell." He stood and walked swiftly out of the room. Danny and Dash edged into the room to avoid close contact with Vlad, and then they walked over to Jazz, Noah, Sam, and Tucker.

Jazz kept her hands on Noah's shoulders. "Not worth it," she repeated softly into his ear over and over again as he bared his teeth and breathed sharply through them. "Not worth it. Not worth it."

"You're right," Noah said finally, his shoulders dropping a little bit. "It won't do any good to turn on each other now. Until the world is saved, we have to work with him."

"And then you can paint the lab walls with his guts," Jazz growled through her teeth.

"And then I can paint the lab walls with his guts."

Sam hugged Noah. "I know you're so righteous," she said. "But be rational. If Vlad turns this into a media firestorm, stay cool and just repeat the truth. No matter how many people don't believe you, just keep repeating the truth."

They turned to the TV in the room, which seemed to be broadcasting some new breakthrough in the study. "Scientists now know the Disasteroid originated from the rings of Saturn two weeks ago!"

Danny wheeled around and gasped. "The rings of Saturn?" He turned back to his friends, who were all coming to the same conclusion. "Vlad's satellite exploded. That's what moved the asteroid!"

Noah's eyes flared up again. "_HE'S the one that caused this_?"

"Oh, man," Danny said, pressing a hand to his face. "This is…"

"Why would Vlad have let the mission fail, though?" Sam asked. "He couldn't have decided to let the world end! I mean, he wants to rule it! And he can't flee into the Ghost Zone, either; it's the flipside of our world. If we go, it goes, too!"

"I have a bad feeling of what Vlad's up to," Danny said. "I have no idea what it is, but I have a bad feeling about it."

"Anything having to do with Vlad is usually bad," Tucker pointed out. "Vlad even _rhymes_ with bad."

"If he's gonna do something, it's gotta be soon," Danny said. "We can't do anything else from here. We'll just have to wait and see."

* * *

><p>Sure enough, the next day, Vlad called for a press conference, and invited news stations from all around the globe, saying that he had news that would "impact the entire world," as he put it.<p>

Danny, Noah, Sam, Tucker, Dash, and Jazz were all in attendance. Danny's mother was with his father, who was bruised and beaten up by the angry Masters' Blasters when the space mission had failed.

The Masters' Blasters now stood behind Vlad with very severe expressions; but Vlad looked almost insane with giddy as he prepared to deliver his speech.

"Let's see what this is about," Danny muttered.

"Citizens of the Earth! I have news that will impact the entire world!

"Though every attempt at destroying the Disasteroid has failed… I come to you today offering an _alternative solution._" Abruptly, he clambered onto the podium in front of him, pulling his legs up into a froglike stance; all six of the Masters' Blasters' eyes widened and looked at him. "One I think you will find most surprising!"

"He's not…" Noah started; but Vlad finished.

Vlad leaped off the podium in a melodramatic fashion, and then flew into the air above the crowd effortlessly. As the crowd gaped below him, he split off his signature double ring of darkness that flowed over his body, leaving a white suit and cape with a red interior, pale blue skin, and a jet-black hairline. He floated above the gasping masses in his transformed ghostly self, and then let out an evil laugh.

"N-No!" Danny stuttered.

"I did not see that coming," Jack stated simply.

The Masters' Blasters were the first to react other than stares, gasps or points; they took stances and charged their ecto-weapons. Unfortunately, they had no idea who they were up against.

Vlad split himself off into three separate bodies, each of which fired a violent purple energy beam, blasting all three members of the teen team off their feet at once along with the podium; with a cry they were knocked down the stage and unconscious.

Vlad merged himself back into one being, and he flew lower and closer to the podium, resuming his speech. "Yes… Though I used my human half to walk among you, it's obvious I am a far superior creature!"

The newscaster from the other day held up a microphone and shouted, "Who ARE you?"

Vlad grinned. "Though the world has come to know me as Vlad Masters, billionaire mayor of Amity Park, I prefer you call me by my chosen, slightly more evil name: Vlad Plasmius!"

Maddie staggered backwards into Jack, finally able to voice her amazement. "Vlad's… a _ghost?_"

"I have a proposition to make," Vlad continued, smiling smugly with closed eyes. "The nations of the world must agree—_unanimously_—to pay me five hundred billion dollars, and make me absolute ruler. In return, I shall use my ghost powers—"

"To destroy the Disasteroid?" a reporter who sounded strangely like Technus yelled to him.

"No. To turn it intangible!"

"Evil," Maddie stated, "but ingenious! That way, it'll just… pass harmlessly through the Earth!"

"It's your choice, world," Vlad finished. "Be destroyed, or be saved! …Oh, and ruled by me. I eagerly await your decision!" He started to laugh, but suddenly stopped.

Noah had clambered onto the stage and righted the podium, then leaned on it with his arms and glared directly at Vlad.

Vlad fired an energy beam, but Noah swept his arm at the incoming blast and deflected it into the wall of the building behind him. The crowd gasped.

"I have news that will impact the entire world, too," Noah said as Danny, Sam, Tucker, Jazz and Dash finally pushed their way to the front of the crowd in his trail and shook their heads no. Noah did not break his gaze with Vlad.

"You disgust me," Noah continued in a low, threatening voice. "World, I have a proposition of my own to make!" He climbed onto the podium, too, and then jumped straight up into the air, and floated there with his arms folded.

With a shimmering all over his skin, he transformed himself into the unnamed ghost who had been terrorizing Amity Park for the past week.

The crowd gasped again, and Vlad's expression turned to fury.

"I'll turn the Disasteroid intangible!" Noah exclaimed. "And I'll do it… for _free!_"

"Back down, boy, if you know what's good for you!" Vlad spat. "Or I will destroy you completely like I did to Danny Phantom!"

Another gasp. People started to shout things like "It's not true!" and "He's lying!"

"I did!" Vlad laughed. "I destroyed Danny Phantom! Let him show up if he thinks I'm wrong!" He held a hand to his ear. "No? Well, then, I suppose I'm telling the truth!" He pointed at Noah. "If you accept this boy's offer, I will destroy his craft before it leaves the atmosphere!"

A blast came out of the crowd and struck Vlad in the back; he spiraled downwards, and Valerie burst out of the crowd. She fired more shots, hitting Vlad out of the crowd; Noah followed close and punched him hard in the side of the head, where he crashed down hard. Noah ripped off his necklace as Vlad struck the ground.

He whipped the necklace into Vlad's throat, and the older man choked a breath out before a blue light enveloped him and he was sucked into the necklace instantly. He disappeared with a wisp of red smoke, and Noah smirked and held up the necklace.

The crowd cheered and rushed at him; Noah rose up into the air and folded his arms, smiling smugly.

Danny ran over to Valerie and hugged her; she smiled and shouldered her ecto-gun. "You're welcome," she whispered. "Thank Noah for me, too."

Media folk held up their microphones, shouting questions. Noah held up his hands in protest, and everyone fell silent. "One question at a time, please." He pointed to a news anchor who had raised his hand.

"How can we trust you?" the news anchor stated. "You've attacked the local high school and more, fighting off Danny Phantom and the Masters' Blasters!"

"I assure you, as part human, I'd like to see the world relatively not obliterated," Noah answered. "As for my 'attacks,' I've been reformed by Danny Phantom. He's entrusted ghost-fighting to me while he is on vacation."

"So he's not been destroyed by Vlad?" someone yelled.

"No," Noah responded confidently. "Vlad Plasmius simply took advantage of the fact that he knew Danny Phantom had been taking a vacation in the Ghost Zone, and then claimed to have destroyed him, to intimidate everyone."

"And you'll do what Vlad has claimed… for free?" another news anchor yelled.

"Yes," Noah said. "I…" He thought for a moment, stroking his chin.

The crowd was silent, praying that he wasn't rethinking the offer. But Noah smiled and turned back to the crowd, and said, "Just one thing I'd like to see changed. When the world is saved, homosexual marriage shall be LEGALIZED in every country."

The crowd was silent for a moment. Then Gary, the gay kid from school, whistled loudly and shouted, "Amen to that!"

He started clapping, and other people in the town started to join. Finally, the sound of the clapping drowned out the boos that were coming from the vast minority. Noah smiled and bowed in the air.

"How will you enforce this?" shouted Shelly, the local newscaster, when the clapping died down. "There will certainly be some countries who will not carry out on their word, or resist this doctrine from the getgo."

"There will be retribution if that order isn't followed," Noah replied firmly. Then he held out his necklace. "And if they refuse beforehand, I could always let Vlad go, and he'll save the world instead. It wouldn't affect me; I can live life outside of legal bounds. So, religious extremist morons: if you value not being enslaved more than you value stopping good people who love each other from being married, I suggest you follow my lead. I will leave as soon as I am contacted by the majority of the world, and I will force the rest to follow. You know where to find me." He faded into the air, grinning.

* * *

><p>Noah, Danny, and Dash hung out in the lab while the decision was being made. Noah was tinkering with the Specter Speeder, making it easier to track specific ghosts.<p>

"I installed the new and updated ghost tracker," he said, wiping sweat from his brow and tossing aside a wrench. "And it only took seven hours, counting yesterday's work."

"Awesome," Danny said.

"Oh, and toss me your necklace," Noah said. "I made an even better one for you… If you activate it, it'll capture any ghost within five feet. Just don't use it near me, okay?"

"That's a nifty feature," Danny complimented.

"Thanks," Noah said. "You can use it now, because you're… well…"

"Mmhm. I getcha." He slid the necklace on and tossed Noah the old one.

"Yeah, this new Ghost Tracker is ultra-sensitive," Noah said. "And it stockpiles information on ghosts, so we could find—let's say, Vlad—anywhere on the globe using his ecto-signature, without having to do more than type in his name. Um…" He stared at the screen and tried to pick something off of it with his fingernail. "What is that? Is there another ghost in here?"

"No," Danny said, looking around. "Your ghost sense would have gone off."

"Oh, don't tell me this thing has bugs," Noah whined. "I spent so much time on it. Why… What is this? There aren't any ghosts of 'scale 0.004' ectoplasmic power. That's miniscule! They wouldn't even be ghosts! They'd be…" He gasped. "OH MY GOD…"

"What? What?" Danny yelled, jumping up.

"Danny, Danny, oh my god," Noah stammered. "It didn't show up until you took off the necklace that masked your ecto-signature. Move to the other end of the room!"

"What—?"

"MOVE!"

Danny ran to the other side of the room, and he could see Noah tracking a path with his finger. "It is you! Danny, there's ghost left in you!"

"There is?" Danny ran to the monitor, pushed Noah aside and stared at it. "I don't see anything! What were you talking about?"

Noah was still holding Danny's old necklace; he threw it aside to the other end of the room along with his own. Suddenly an extremely faint blue dot appeared on the screen, and information started popping up about it.

_Levitation max height: 0.04"_

_Air speed max velocity: 0.01 MPH_

There was more information, like max energy output, max energy blockage, max clone count, and, finally, the Scale number: 0.004. But he was definitely still showing up.

"There must have been some sort of weird screw-up with the Fenton Portal," Noah said. He clicked on a red dot on the screen, and all sorts of information popped up, in much higher quantities than the first. "This dot is me. This other one _has_ to be you. There's no other explanation! You still have some ghost traces left in your DNA!"

"What does that mean?" Danny asked.

"It _means_, with enough spectral energy, you could get a jump almost like a car, and your genome would regress—Danny, _you could get your powers back!_"

"Don't even say that yet," Danny laughed, putting a hand to his heart. "I think I might die of happiness."

"Danny…"

Dash sidled up to him and hooked his arm around the rejuvenated teen, who gladly hooked an arm back. "Dash, can you believe it?" Danny laughed.

"This is great," he said. "But… Noah, quick question. Where are we going to get all that spectral energy?"

Noah took out a calculator. "I could blast you with an energy ray for… one hundred and six hours," he offered. "Rough estimate."

"Wait!" Danny said. "What about the Ecto-converter that we used on Riptide?"

"Oh, yeah!" Noah said. "Danny, that's perfect!" He ran to the drawers and started opening them.

"Riptide," Dash said, laughing. "Fun times."

Noah pulled it out. "Um… I don't know how this would work, though. It would probably intensify my energy to the point that it would cremate you."

"Oh," Danny said. "Can't you think of something—"

He was interrupted by the sound of footsteps; when he turned around to look at the lab stairs, he was shocked to see that it was Valerie Gray who was walking down them. She waved at Danny, and he waved back nervously.

She sidled up to him and whispered, "Do both of them know?"

Danny nodded.

"Oh," she said, backing up and looking at Dash. "That's… odd. I never really saw you and Dash as good enough friends to share that…"

"We weren't," Dash said confidently. "Until we started going out."

Valerie gave some cross between a hiccup and a cough, and then started laughing. "Oh, you got me," she said, wiping a tear from her eye.

"We're… serious," Danny said, and pulled himself close to Dash.

Valerie raised an eyebrow. "All right, why don't you kiss?"

They took her suggestion immediately, and Valerie gawked. "Whoa!" she shouted. "Really?"

"Really."

Valerie rubbed the back of her neck. "Forgive me, Dash, but I thought your parents were a little…"

"I really don't care," Dash said. "I left and I'm not going back until they can suck up their fundamental Catholicism and deal with me."

"I think that's great," she said, smiling. "And you, Noah… I think I get now why you were so adamant about gay rights?"

Noah laughed. "Yep."

"Look at you, Dash," Valerie laughed. "If Paulina only knew! You're going out with Danny Phantom!"

Danny sighed; Noah spoke for him. "Valerie… he doesn't have his powers anymore."

"_WHAT?_" Valerie almost fell down. "What do you mean? That's not…" She held up her watch to him, and nothing was going off. "Wait, your necklace!"

"That's a new one," Noah said. "It doesn't mask him."

"How is that… How did this happen?" Valerie fiddled with her watch.

"Vlad threw me in the Fenton Portal and turned it on," Danny said. "That's how I got my powers. It took them away this time."

"That son of a…" Valerie growled. "Is there any way to fix it?"

Noah nodded. "He still has the tiniest bit left in him. We think that if he was hit with enough spectral energy, he'd be able to restructure his DNA and become half-ghost again! But… it's going to be difficult."

Valerie took out a large ecto-gun and smiled. "I'd be happy to help if you need it!"

Noah laughed. "Nah, I think even with both of us firing, it'd probably take three days at the least to get enough energy, and he might be dead by—" He cut himself off with a sudden realization, and jumped about three feet straight up in the air, grabbing his hair with both hands. "Wait! WAIT!" he yelled on landing.

"We're waiting," Dash said, laughing. "What?"

"Valerie!" Noah shouted, running back to one of the lab tables. "Let me hook up with your guns!"

"Ex-CUSE me?"

Noah slapped himself in the forehead. "God, I'm sorry. I meant, let me hook this up with your gun!" He picked up the ecto-converter.

"What is that?" Valerie said, handing him the larger weapon. Noah took it and ran back to the lab table.

"It's an ecto-converter," Danny explained so that Noah didn't have to take his mind off the task at hand. "Noah built it when we were fighting Riptide. It takes spectral energy and intensifies it massively in the user. The problem is that if Noah shot me while holding it, it would probably destroy my body… I don't know how Noah plans to fix that."

"Danny, I think I might be able to do this," Noah said, bouncing up and down on his heels like an excited kid. "I think I can modify the gun to make this work! If that's okay with you, Valerie."

"Oh, do it," she said happily. "I've got dozens."

"It might take a while," Noah said over his shoulder. "I have no idea how long."

Danny laughed to himself. "Sometimes I wish the world was more like a video game," he said. "I could walk up the stairs into the living room, and then when I walked back down, you'd be done."

"I wish it was like a kid's cartoon," Valerie said. "Then we'd know everything would turn out okay."

"I wish it was like the romance channel," Dash said. Then he elbowed Danny softly in the side. "Oh, wait… it is!" He grabbed Danny and kissed him again.

"As much as I'd like to do this right now," Noah said, "I think we're probably close to a decision."

Almost on cue, Danny's parents rushed down the stairs and held their hands together. "Noah," Maddie said. "The world accepts your offer! The rocket's all ready!"

"My own flesh and blood," Jack said, tearing up. "Saving the world! I'll have to get my autograph hand ready!"

"We're so proud of you," Maddie said. "Not just for the world-saving thing… for the other part, too." She brushed aside his hair and pecked him on the forehead. "The world-saving thing is pretty neat, too, though."

Noah nodded and ran up the stairs; the three other teens followed closely behind him, with Danny's parents coming up last. Noah flipped on the T.V.

"The world has come to a decision: to NOT be obliterated!" proclaimed Shelly the local newscaster. "Local boy Noah Nightingale, now known as the ghost kid that some had titled 'Inviso-Bill Jr.' or 'DisapPeter,' is taking to the jet to board the asteroid now! With his ghost powers, he will hopefully turn the Disasteroid intangible and save the planet! And in doing so, he's accomplished what millions of activists have dreamed of doing for decades—equal marriage opportunities for all! Of course, there are some who actively spoke out against this ideal…"

The screen changed to a man with long hair and a beard pacing back and forth on a stage, screaming and ranting. "Let the world be destroyed!" he shouted. "It has been foretold in the Revelations! We have failed to destroy this Disasteroid because it is not up to us to decide the fate of our planet! We should allow the world to be destroyed, and then collect our reward in Heaven for being faithful, rather than allow this sacrilege to become the norm!"

The screen switched back to Shelly, who grimly stated, "Security has been heightened to the extremes around the rocket that is to carry Noah. In fact, the only people allowed to work on the project are people with proven homosexual relations—to ensure that they do not intend to sabotage the mission!"

"I'm going," Noah said. "I should have left earlier. Wish me luck." Without looking back, he transformed and shot out of the room like the rocket he was about to board.

"I wonder how he managed to fool us that whole time," Maddie said, stroking her chin.

"I know!" Jack agreed. "After all, it's nearly impossible to fool me! Isn't that right, my one-hundred-percent-human son?"

"Wait a minute," Maddie said. "Danny, did _you_ know that Noah was a ghost?"

"Um…" Danny said, biting his lower lip, trying to decide what he should say. "Uh… yes. Yeah. He had to let me know, because he was meeting Danny Phantom." It was true, after all. "And I needed to know where he was going."

"Wow," Jack said. "So, who's Danny Phantom, then?"

Danny started to sweat again. "Um… he's not a half-ghost." This was also not a lie—Danny Phantom was less than one percent ghost at the moment.

"Interesting," Maddie said. "Oh—look! The rocket's taking off!"

They watched the T.V. screen. "That was quick," Danny said.

Noah was waving hello to a cheering crowd as he climbed into the rocket with a member of the space program named Theo Austaire. Steam billowed from the bottom of the rocket. Then there was a roar, and the rocket started to lift off into the air.

There was a small explosion near the bottom of the rocket, and it suddenly stopped its ascent, plummeting back the thirty feet it had climbed.

Noah dove at Theo, making himself and the astronaut intangible, and knocked the man outside of the rocket as it crashed back into the ground with an enormous rumble.

The Fenton household stared, shocked, until Shelly came back on looking happy as ever. "Folks, there are no worries," Shelly said. "Noah and Theo had been warned that sabotage was entirely possible. A second rocket had been built in case of such an event, and it is to that location that Noah is currently headed!"

The sighs of relief were almost worldwide. They watched the T.V. tensely as the television switched scenes, the second location of which was not explicitly revealed. A smaller rocket emerged from the ground, and Noah flew into it swiftly. It hadn't taken him more than five minutes to arrive—it worried Danny that the second location was so close to the first. He just stared at the screen and prayed that the world would be safe.

Noah and Theo phased into the rocket, and the take-off procedure was almost immediate in fear of another sabotage attempt.

"Come on," Danny whispered to himself, watching the rocket lift itself off the ground as the last one had done. "Come on!"

His heart stopped completely as a man popped out of the hole from which the spaceship had emerged—he was holding what looked exactly like a rocket launcher.

Noah could be seen through a thick window in the craft; he held a hand up to his ear, as if he was listening to a transmission describing what was going on below. He nodded and pressed his hands to his seat—the other hand held the ecto-converter.

The transparency effect swept throughout the entire ship, turning it intangible just as a rocket blasted out from the end of the launcher towards it. The rocket passed harmlessly through, and Noah released the effect after it exploded high in the air above him.

A shot rang out as the man attempted to reload, and the rocket launcher exploded in his hands. The media refused to show what happened to the man after that—probably to avoid making him a martyr, Danny figured. But then his mind focused back on the ship that was now entering space, and he jumped for joy that everything was about to be okay. And Noah had brought the ecto-converter—how smart was that? He hadn't even noticed that it was gone. That was brilliant in case he wasn't powerful enough to affect the entire Disasteroid. It looked like they were all safe.

The process was painfully long as Noah went deep into space. When they finally encountered the Disasteroid, Noah phased out with a helmet and the ecto-converter. He gave a thumbs-up to Theo, who smiled back; then, he hooked the ecto-converter around one arm, and reached for the Disasteroid with the other.

Something was wrong. Something was horribly, horribly wrong; a painful electric-like shock coursed throughout his entire body, and he shouted out. It was agony—what was going on? What was this? He ripped his hands away, and something happened to his necklace. The metal shattered, pieces floating off gently into space, and Vlad Plasmius appeared, holding his head and growling.

"What—what is this?" Vlad howled, looking around; Noah could only understand him through reading his lips, as sound did not carry in space.

Vlad spied the spaceship and the Disasteroid, and turned an angry gaze towards Noah. "Why have you released me up here?"

"We—don't need helmets up here?" Noah asked, and then shook his head, trying to return his thoughts to the problem at hand. "_Why can't I touch it?_"

Vlad didn't catch the first sentence, but he read Noah's lips to understand the second. He stared at the Disasteroid. "Why can't you touch _that?_"

"It… hurt me," he responded. "Badly." Vlad wasn't looking, and he didn't see Noah speaking; he simply reached his hand out and poked the Disasteroid quickly. A burning sensation flooded his finger and swept throughout his entire body, even seconds after he pulled his finger away. "How can this be? No… This isn't…"

He turned to Noah and flew inside the ship. Noah followed shortly after.

"It's Ectoranium," Vlad said grimly, staring with a horrified look at the Disasteroid. "A naturally occurring anti-ghost element! The entire asteroid is composed of it. We… We can never touch it. So… the earth _is_ doomed…!"

Noah sat down on the floor of the ship and put his head in his hands. "This can't be happening. It _can't_ be."

"I'm afraid it is, young Noah," Vlad said softly. "We'd be better off hijacking this ship and finding another planet. If we stay in our ghost forms, we won't need to eat."

Noah stood up again and stared him down. "You really just don't know how to be a good guy, do you?"

"I never found it worthwhile to learn," Vlad replied.

Noah sighed. "Theo, you'd better turn this bucket around and head back to Earth to spend your last moments with your husband and other family. Vlad, I'm afraid that, for my safety and Theo's, I'm going to have to take you in." He shot at Vlad, tackling him out of the ship again, and they tumbled through the stars.

"Idiot boy!" Vlad yelled silently. "No one can sneak up on me this time and save you. You're nothing compared to me!"

Noah held up the ecto-converter and smiled sweetly. "And now I am."

Vlad took on a shocked expression as Noah used one hand to hold the converter and the other hand to blast a ray of energy that exploded into Vlad and sent him flying backwards through space at a speed that Noah couldn't even comprehend.

"That's for Danny," Noah said. He nodded shortly and then flew back into the spaceship as it was finishing the turn to blast back to Earth.

Vlad laughed without sound as he clung to the side of the ship invisibly. Had they really fallen for that sacrifice-the-clone trick _again?_

* * *

><p>The world was mostly silent, having received news of the mission's failure. Hopes everywhere had crumbled, and it seemed like there was nothing left they could do.<p>

Sam hugged Noah when the sullen teen returned, and kissed him on the cheek. "This is in no way your fault," she whispered in his ear. "There was nothing you could do."

"What are we gonna do?" Tucker cried out, his voice cracking.

Danny suddenly walked wide-eyed into the room, looking excited. "What if we didn't make the _asteroid_ intangible…?"

"Then… it would obliterate the earth," Tucker answered.

"Not if we made the _earth_ intangible!" Danny replied.

Sam and Noah glanced over at him. "The _entire earth?_ Intangible?" Jazz said amazedly. "Are you joking?"

"Yeah, you'd need like, a bazillion ghosts to do that!" Tucker piped in.

"Behold!" Danny said, whipping out the Infi-map and slapping it against his open palm. "The addresses of a bazillion ghosts!"

"That's the spirit!" Dash yelled. "We could totally do this!"

"Danny," Noah said. "I want to fix you up first. I think I could get your powers back within a day!"

"Do that," Danny said. "I'm going to go describe the plan to the world. But… I don't know how anyone is going to listen to me… I'm not, like, Danny Phantom."

"You could be," Noah insisted. "Give me a moment's time."

"Wait!" Danny said, the last line having triggered a breakthrough in his mind. "Clockwork!"

"Clockwork?" Sam said. "Danny, I don't know if he's going to help. He's a neutral presence. He doesn't usually interfere."

"No, we don't have to make him help us," Danny said. "Clockwork's lair exists outside of time! If we bring Noah and all the materials there, then he doesn't have to worry about a time limit! He can work as long as he wants to, and no time will go by!"

"That's great!" Noah said. "What are we waiting for?"

"We don't have a ghost portal," Tucker pointed out. "And Vlad's place is probably going to be swarmed now that everyone knows who he really is."

"We'll take a portal from the Infi-map," Danny said. "It can lead us to any entrance into the Ghost Zone! Let's go, _now!_"

"Agreed!" Noah said. "Everyone go outside! I'll bring the Speeder!" He phased through the floor of the house into the lab to retrieve the Speeder and his materials.

When the rest of the group—Danny, Dash, Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and Valerie—had gone outside and circled around to the back of the house, Noah rose up through the ground with an intangible Specter Speeder. It faded back into tangibility as the six teens climbed inside it, and then the Speeder blasted off.

"According to the map, a portal is about to open, right… here!" Danny said, pointing to the Nasty Burger billboard, which pictured a teen eating a burger. True to his word, a second later the billboard flashed green, and a spiraling neon energy vortex filled the spot around the mouth. The Speeder blasted through, and Tucker screamed, "Now I know how my chili fries feel!" Everyone in the Speeder rolled their eyes.

The core members of the gang looked around to try and figure out where they were. Jazz had not been in the Ghost Zone more than once, as far as Danny remembered. She was still looking around with amazement. Dash had only been in a few times, and Valerie had only gone once (but didn't remember it). Tucker was holding the Infi-map and scanning it with his finger. "We're actually pretty close to Clockwork's lair," he said. "We've only got maybe two minutes of trip to go. Let's hope we don't get found."

"It seems pretty empty," Jazz said. "Is it usually like this?"

"Skulker!" Danny shouted, pointing forward; Noah shielded the front of the Speeder as they barreled past the hunter ghost, who was still firing blue energy beams at them.

"Come back here, ghost child!" Skulker yelled. "What are you doing here? Seeking refuge in the Ghost Zone like all the others?"

"What others?" Danny yelled into the loudspeaker.

"All these ghosts!" Skulker yelled, flying in front of the Speeder, which slowed to a stop as Noah prepared to fight. He pointed around at hundreds of generic-looking ghosts who appeared from every corner up ahead. "They've returned here because you humans put your world in danger. Now the Ghost Zone is bursting at the seams!"

"But it's the flipside of our world," Tucker protested. "If the earth gets destroyed, the Ghost Zone goes, too!"

Skulker fired another blast of energy; Noah pounced through the windshield of the Speeder and kicked the blast aside with ease, then slashed his other foot through the air in a follow-up, producing a stream of fire that scorched some of Skulker's armor. He stumbled back, staring at the human boy who had apparently assaulted him.

"Another one," Skulker said, stroking his chin. "I shall have your pelt on my wall as well!"

"That's weird," Noah said, backing towards the Speeder again. "Not likely, though!"

"That's what you think, whelp!" Skulker said; he tossed a glowing black cube at the boy. Noah blasted energy at it, but it did nothing to stop the cube, which enveloped and electrocuted him.

"Not good!" Danny said. He opened up the windshield with a button on the dashboard. "Valerie, do your thing!"

Valerie clicked her heels together as she jumped into the air and pressed a button on her wrist. The bio-suit that enveloped her whirred with energy as a hover-board formed under her. She blasted after Noah, slamming into Skulker with the prongs of the board, skewering his mechanical exo-skeleton.

Skulker shouted out. "You again!" He looked into the Speeder and spied Dash. "And you, too! The one who destroyed my last suit! How am I supposed to hunt all of you at once?"

"How about we do the hunting, then?" Valerie shouted as she whipped out a cannon and slammed it against Skulker's forehead.

Skulker winced as the cannon charged up and exploded into the head of his outfit. The small ghost who inhabited the head floated off unconsciously into the Ghost Zone as Valerie kicked off the lower half of the armor from her hover-board.

Noah's cube faded into the air, and he took a deep breath as he looked at Valerie, who headed back into the Speeder. He followed shortly after and closed the windshield behind them; they continued through the Ghost Zone towards Clockwork.

More ghosts were following them; it looked like they, too, wanted to pick a fight. But they weren't faster than the Speeder hooked up to the ecto-converter, a process which had taken Noah only the thirty seconds it took to pilot the Speeder towards the Nasty Burger sign. He was really a whiz with electronics.

"There it is," Danny said, pointing at Clockwork's lair. They passed through a strange dark halo that surrounded the castle, and Danny looked at his watch—it had stopped ticking. Instead, the second, minute, and hour hands all spun so fast it looked like they were on every time at once. In fact, they might have been.

They landed on the ground-level floor—then again, there wasn't really a ground in this part of the Ghost Zone. The seven teens stepped outside, four of them looking around in amazement at the lair of the ghost of time, which they had never seen before. A voice above them mused, "You're welcome to visit any time, of course."

They all looked up to see Clockwork leaning on the terrace above, looking down from the face of the grandfather clock. His form was currently that of an old man. "I still think it's cheating just a little bit, but you may stay for as long as you need."

"Does he already know why we're here?" Dash muttered to Danny.

"I know everything," Clockwork said. "Come inside. Please." He floated back into his tower.

Danny waved to the rest of the group. He stopped for a moment and looked back—it was interesting how the posse had grown. At first, it was just him, Sam, and Tucker. Then Jazz had found out, but that was a while ago. Then Dash had discovered Danny's secret but hadn't let on to it, and then Noah appeared, and Valerie found out, and Dash disclosed to Danny that he knew… they had gone from three to seven. Would they get anyone else?

…Maybe. But only if the world was still there.

They trudged into the atrium; Valerie, Dash, and Jazz looked around in awe at all the mechanisms inside the clock tower. Noah ignored it and immediately set to work on the machine he'd brought; even knowing that they had all the time in the world, he still felt like he couldn't move fast enough.

"Danny," Noah whispered, beckoning his friend over.

Danny walked over to Noah and leaned down. "What is it?"

"I was just wondering." He sighed. "I'm a little distracted by it, so I want to see if you know. The Ghost Tracker couldn't comprehend Clockwork's power—there was a dot on the screen that I assumed was Clockwork, because the numbers were freaking out and spazzing between 0 and 99. But… there was another dot in this fortress. It was a _scale 15_ ectoplasmic entity. It was separate from Clockwork, and it stood completely still. Do you have any idea what it was?"

"N…" Danny thought as hard as he could. "Give me a moment… I feel like I should know this."

Noah went back to working, and Danny scanned his thoughts. _Scale 15… Has Clockwork ever mentioned anything like that…? A powerful—_

"Oh," Danny said. "Um… duh."

Noah looked up. "You remembered?"

"Yeah," Danny said. "It's evil me from ten years in the future, which is no longer destined to happen because Clockwork intervened under orders of the Observants. He was ordered to destroy me, but he instead gave me a second chance to not cheat on the test that caused my family and friends to die in an explosion in the Nasty Burger."

Noah blinked slowly. "Care to explain it without being sarcastic?"

"No, that's what happened," Danny said. "I know it's a little weird, but… Whatever. This'll take a while to explain. I'll tell you later."

Noah nodded and got back to wiring in the ecto-converter to Valerie's gun. The challenge wasn't hooking it up—the challenge was filtering the ghostly energy so that it wouldn't destroy Danny's physical form; it would simply zap him with enough energy to spark the ghostly remnants of his alter-ego's genome to return.

The science of this sounded ridiculous. Noah just ignored how strange everything sounded and trudged on with his work.

Danny admired Noah's diligence for a little while, and then offered to take everyone on a tour of Clockwork's dominion. He walked hand-in-hand with Dash up the stairs, and opened the door to the top floor. Valerie, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker followed, leaving Noah alone so he could focus on his work.

"Wow," Dash said, looking around. "This is amazing! Are those… portals to other times? He gawked into the eighties portal. "Are those my _parents?_" He whipped around with a grin on his face. "Valerie! Valerie, fly me into the past! Maybe I can change my parents' minds about homosexuality!"

Danny put a hand on Dash's shoulder. "Trust me," he said. "I've had experience trying to change the past. And the future. Believe me when I tell you that these sorts of things are best saved for the present."

"You've learned well," Clockwork said, floating into the room. He was a small child again.

"Who's that?" Dash asked.

"It's Clockwork, Dash," Danny said. "You saw him when we came in."

"That's Clockwork?" Dash asked. "I thought he was—oh."

Clockwork's form changed into an old man again. "I see the parades of your timelines have finally met," he said, looking from Danny to Dash.

Dash looked confused, but Danny brightened up. "Oh!" he said. "When I was tracking Wardback! You told me that Dash would play a significant part in my life!"

"Why were you tracking Wardback?" Sam asked. Danny winced; he still hadn't told them about Wardback's temper tantrum that almost turned the entire world backwards forever.

Clockwork interrupted, much to Danny's relief. "You kids are a noble group," he said, becoming a middle-aged adult. "Selfless, and accountable. I would not have allowed you to bend the rules of time if you were doing this for yourselves. But the one who remains downstairs… What a noble cause he works for."

"I'll tell him you said that," Danny said, smiling.

"I know you will," Clockwork said, winking. "Have a good stay." He turned back into a child and phased through the wall.

"Well, geez," Valerie said, turning to Danny. "If he really knows everything… I'd have asked him if you ever get your powers back, and if the world gets saved."

"It's not our place to know that," Danny said. "I have a feeling Clockwork left before you could ask him."

Valerie laughed. "We don't get to know the fate of our own planet?"

"It's not that," Danny said, turning to her. "It's because we decide its fate."

* * *

><p>Nine hours later, Noah was still working, and the teens were still exploring the castle, marveling at its wonders. There were many artifacts dating back hundreds of years. In one room, they encountered dinosaur skeletons; in another, they encountered <em>living<em> dinosaurs, frozen in time.

"This is crazy," Tucker said, putting his head between the jaws of a carnivorous dinosaur the size of a horse. "Do you think, if we put medallions on these, they'd come to life?"

"I don't want to try it," Danny said. "But they might very well."

"This castle is a lot bigger than it looks on the outside," Sam noted.

"Maybe it's a distortion of space-time," Valerie said. "Scientists often say that space and time are connected."

Danny nodded. "He seems to be able to teleport or transport other people anywhere, too," he said. "I went from the University of Wisconsin to Amity Park in a half a second when I was here a couple times ago. Or maybe it's just because when time is nonexistent, you can't perceive movement, so it seems instantaneous. Whatever. Who are we to try and decide how these things work?"

They left the dinosaur room and passed a long, narrow hallway that seemed about a football field's length. "I wonder what's down there," Dash asked.

"Let's go find out," Danny said, shrugging. They walked down the length of the hallway, which was so thin that they had to walk single file to fit comfortably.

The door at the end was not sealed tightly, but it still looked ominous. It was a plain wooden door with a wooden beam across the handles that had to be lifted in order to gain access.

They slid the beam down and creaked the door open, peeking in slowly.

Danny was the first to see, and he gasped, recognizing it immediately. He waved the others in and held the door open.

It was a Fenton Thermos, suspended in the air, with a hand punching through the side, frozen in time. Small pieces of the Fenton Thermos had been frozen while shattering apart from the whole; when Danny walked around the side to look inside the hole, he could see a pair of red glowing eyes staring directly at him.

"It's my evil self," Danny told them. "Frozen in time at the point where he broke through the other side of the thermos."

"Your evil self?" Dash asked, staring concernedly at his boyfriend.

"Evil me from ten years in the future," Danny informed him. "Don't worry; we avoided that future. With Clockwork's help. But I guess my evil self still exists, since he began to exist outside of time."

"Clockwork can hold him, right?" Sam asked nervously.

"Of course," Danny said. "Clockwork is all-powerful. He'd know if an escape was possible."

"You should have seen that future," Danny said, turning to Valerie. "It was crazy. You were the main enemy of my evil future self… Amity Park was in shambles… Future me had no problems nearly killing me, and almost killed my entire family. Scariest thing I've ever encountered."

Clockwork could be seen at the opposite end of the hall. He called to them, "Your friend is about finished."

"Awesome," Dash said. "Come on! Let's go do this!"

They raced back down the hallway and weaved through the maze of Clockwork's lair; arriving in the atrium just as Noah lifted up the gun and shouted, "YES!"

He turned around and laughed. "Figured Clockwork would send you up here at the exact second that I finished," he said. "Danny! All Valerie needs to do is point this at you and fire while I bombard the converter with energy from above. And it'll trigger the reformation of your ghostly half!"

"That's so great," Danny said. "You sure there's gonna be no side effects, though? I won't, like, be stuck in ghost form or anything?"

"I sincerely, sincerely doubt it," Noah said brightly. "Though I'd rather be all ghost than all human… That's not the point, though. You don't have to choose!" He held up the gun. "Valerie, could you get this?"

"Of course!" Valerie ran over and held the gun, pointing it at Danny.

Noah floated above them, winking. "Ready?" he called.

"Ready!" Danny yelled. "Hit it!"

Noah held both of his hands straight downwards and channeled his energy into a blast that struck the ecto-converter; Valerie fired the gun with a bright orange ray that did not smash into Danny as he expected it to; rather, it seemed to flow into him, heating up his chest and flooding his fingers with fire.

He strained against the urge to collapse in a heap on the ground and endured the pain; his skin flashed transparent and his bones were visible by the crowd; his hair flashed opposite colors, and there was a small explosion. Noah let go of his energy blast, and watched and waited.

When the smoke cleared, Danny was whooping and hollering, floating in the air a foot above the floor. His Danny Phantom outfit was back!

The other teens threw triumphant fists in the air and hollered victoriously. They slapped high fives; Dash yelled, "Danny Phantom's BACK, baby!"

Danny, however, had stopped cheering. He floated back to the ground. "Noah?" he said, staring at his hands. The cheering stopped. "Noah, is this supposed to…?"

"Is what supposed to what?" Noah asked, turning paler than usual.

"I'm…"

Danny gasped and coughed wetly; green liquid splattered out of his mouth. "Guys. GUYS. I'm—Oh my god. Oh my god." He fell to his knees on the floor, which squished and splattered several feet in each direction.

Sam, Valerie, and Noah all screamed. Dash ran over to Danny and cupped the ghost's face in his hands. "Danny!" he shouted. "Danny, concentrate! You can stop this! Concentrate on forming yourself again!"

Danny's face was starting to drip down Dash's hands, but Dash didn't pull away. Danny tried to concentrate on reforming, but he felt powerless over his own body.

Danny's eyes managed to roll up and look into Dash's one last time as he whispered, "E…Ect-ecto de… ecto dej—" His mouth stopped moving.

The liquid was gushing out of him like a fountain now. His face melted through Dash's hands and a pool of green liquid was all that was left when it stopped flowing outwards.

Dash screamed the most violent scream anyone in the room had ever heard. "DANNY! _DANNY!_"

Noah screamed next. "I KILLED HIM!" he howled, slamming his forehead into the floor. "OH MY GOD… I KILLED HIM."

Dash whipped around to face Sam and Tucker. "He whispered something!" he shouted. "Like he knew a solution. He said… '_ecto dej_.' What does that mean?"

It was Valerie who gasped. "Ecto-Dejecto!" she yelled. "_ECTO-DEJECTO!_"

"What is that?" Noah asked, looking up. "Is that something that could help?"

"Yes! _Yes!_" Valerie cried. "It's what saved Danielle when _she_ melted down!"

"That's _brilliant_," Sam said. "I can't believe Danny had the presence of mind to think of that! Quickly, get some sort of—container or something. We need something to put Danny in!"

They rummaged through the Speeder's storage compartments; Tucker found a beaker large enough to hold the whole puddle. With a thoroughly disgusted expression, he scooped the entire puddle into the beaker with a duster, and brought it back on board the Specter Speeder. They blasted back off into the Ghost Zone.

"Where would Danny have put it?" Sam asked. "I'd be willing to bet my life that he kept it; he keeps everything like that. But where would he put it?" She turned to Dash. "Did Danny show you any sort of secret hiding place that he had for his stuff?"

"Yes!" Dash shouted out. "He did! Inside his wall!"

"Inside his wall?" Sam asked. "That's… actually pretty good for a hiding spot that no one else can reach. But Noah can get in there!"

Noah nodded from where he was sitting on the floor. "I'm so sorry," he said, tears streaming down his face. "I had… no idea anything like that could happen…"

"You don't have to be sorry," Jazz said, putting her hands on his shoulders. "We're going to fix this!"

"We'll get Danny back," Valerie assured him. "And he'll have his powers back, good as new—thanks to you!"

Noah remained staring wide-eyed at the floor, hugging his knees to his chest.

They sailed through another portal from the Ghost Zone to Amity Park, and flew back to Fenton Works. Noah didn't even bother to phase the Speeder back into the garage; he wanted to get the search over with and fix his mistake.

He carried Sam and Dash up to Danny's room—Dash to tell him where to look, and Sam to identify the Ecto-Dejecto if it wasn't labeled. He reached into the wall and pulled out a cornucopia of items—their old Ghost Zone map, a teddy bear, the Ghost Gauntlets, a Fenton Thermos, the Spooktacles, a small diary, a smashed-up PDA from one of their battles, a shard of a mirror, a copy of a magazine with a gorilla on the front, and other souvenirs from battles they had.

Finally, when Noah had about covered the entire wall, he pulled out what looked like a syringe with a satellite dish instead of a needle. It was labeled clearly: "Ecto-Dejecto." Noah cried out in joy. "This is it!"

"Come on, come on!" Sam said, holding out her arm; Noah grabbed her and Dash and flew back down to the Specter Speeder, where Tucker was waiting with the bucket of Danny.

"Please work," Noah prayed as Valerie took the vial and sprayed it onto the bubbling liquid. "Please… please… _please_ work."

"It took a while last time," Valerie promised Noah as his gaze fell with every passing second. "It worked even when Danielle was melted completely." She bit her lip and silently mouthed to herself, _please work._

And then the miracle happened—Danny's head poked out of the slime. He looked around. "What happened?" he asked. "Where…" He looked down and shouted. "WAH! My body—" And then he sailed out of the fluid, laughing, completely intact and whole in his ghostly form. "You guys did it! How did you do it?"

Valerie held up the Ecto-Dejecto. "Courtesy of your dad," she said. "I always wondered why Danny Phantom kept such a close eye on the Fentons!"

"Then we're back at my house?" Danny asked, looking around the backyard. "How much time has passed here since Noah got back from the spaceship?"

"Not a half hour," Tucker replied. "Are you ready to shake the world up?"

"To stop it from shattering, I'd do anything," Danny said. "Time to make a statement!"

* * *

><p>"Danny Phantom is back," said Lance Thunder to a camera. "Seven teens from Casper High—Noah Nightingale, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Danny Fenton, Jasmine Fenton, Dash Baxter, and Valerie Gray—have gone to the Ghost Zone and found Danny Phantom while he was on his vacation, and brought him back here! Now that his absence is over, the teen ghost fighter has a message for the world!"<p>

Danny stepped awkwardly up to the podium in his phantom form. A human clone of his stood by the rest of his friends; Noah winked at him from the crowd. Dash mouthed, _Go get 'em!_

"Uh, hello there," Danny said nervously, trying not to let Dash's handsome face distract him. "I have a plan that could save us all from the asteroid. And this one is absolutely free! How great is that?"

An old woman near the front yelled, "If ghosts can't touch the asteroid, then how are _you_ gonna stop it?"

"Because we're not going to turn the asteroid intangible," Danny replied. "We're going to turn the EARTH intangible!"

Small gasps came from the crowd. Tucker stepped up to the podium and cleared his throat. "Ahem. Ladies, gentlemen… various nations and stuff… My name is Tucker Foley, and I… am a techno-geek."

Chester, Carl, and Patrick piped up from the back, holding up their hands in a "live long and prosper" position. "Hi, Tucker!" they yelled.

Tucker held up his hand in the same pose as a response. "Dudes," he said, acknowledging them. He then returned to the task at hand. "The new plan is very simple. With a strong enough ghostly power source, and a big enough transfer device, we could send the ghosts' intangibility across the entire planet. This way, the Disasteroid will pass harmlessly through it." The animation described what he was saying, ending with the asteroid flying through an intangible earth. Then a happy bouncing ghost appeared on the screen, followed by the words "THE END" and then "A TUCKER FOLEY JOINT."

Danny returned to the podium. "That's the plan," he stated, invoking the greatest leadership quality he could muster in his voice, just like Youngblood had taught him. "Who's with us?"

There was a moment's stunned silence… and then the first one to start clapping was Jack Fenton. His large hands slapped against each other as he smiled in approval. Maddie smiled back at her husband, and then she started clapping, too.

Mr. Lancer was next; then Kwan; Mr. and Mrs. Manson and Mr. and Mrs. Foley. The applause grew to a roar as the rest of the crowd joined in, clapping and cheering their approval. In the back, Danny spied what looked like Mr. and Mrs. Baxter; they were clapping, too.

Mr. Lancer stared at Tucker; Sam was near him and she heard him say, "They never put that much effort into their _schoolwork_…"

* * *

><p>Danny had expressed his approval of Noah's policy on homosexuality, and had stressed that he would stick to it. All of the nations came together to build the transfer devices, centered on the South Pole. Danny gave several speeches to world councils, about coming together not as separate nations, but as one world. He felt like a true hero.<p>

Noah and Tucker headed the development on the transfer device, while Jack and Maddie Fenton headed the process of spreading the transfer cables across the globe via helicopters. The entire project was coming together—and good thing, too, since the Disasteroid was less than six hours from impact.

There had been rumors that Noah was gay, based on the policy he'd tried to enforce before—this rumor was quickly dispelled when he kissed Sam, not knowing there was a broadcasting system stalking him. Danny noticed it on the news, and he smiled, deciding to go see Sam and Noah before he left on his trip to collect the ghosts for the power source.

"Not bad," Sam said, admiring the machinery. She was dressed in a black winter coat, due to the freezing temperatures of the South Pole; it was still freezing, though, so she hugged Noah close to her. "You sure you don't want us to come with you?"

"I'm sure," Danny said. "I can move faster on my own. …By the way, where do Mom and Dad think Danny Fenton is right now, anyway?"

"With them," Jazz answered proudly. "I redressed the Tuckbot 9000 to make it look and act like you. They'll never know the difference."

Danny imagined this and laughed to himself. Then he stepped over to Noah and nudged him in the side. "A moment alone," he said. Noah nodded, waved shyly to Sam and then stepped away for a word with Danny.

Danny opened up his clenched hand, revealing a ring inscribed _Sam_. "Sam gave this back to me with a little bit of a laugh when I started dating Dash… I think you should give it to her. It'd be cute." He flashed a grin. "I can't believe I used to be jealous of you because Sam liked you. Now I'm so happy for you two. You might even say I'm gay!"

"Thanks," Noah laughed. "So, I'll see you back here in under six hours. Or else!"

"Of course," Danny said.

Noah shifted his feet in the snow and blushed a little bit. "Hey… while you're alone here with me…"

"What?"

"I always wanted to do this," he said. "Hope you don't mind." He stepped up close and pecked Danny on the lips for about a second, then leaned back.

Danny laughed a little bit. "What was that?" he asked.

"Just a thank-you," Noah said. "I kind of always wanted to. I'm not bi, I don't think… I just wanted to see what it was like." He shrugged. "No difference. I don't get what the big deal is about boys kissing."

"Well, feel free to do that again any time you'd like," Danny chuckled. "Just don't let Dash see; he might get jealous."

Noah winked. "Don't let Sam see, either."

Danny opened up the map. "Oh, geez, I gotta go," he said. "According to the map, a portal's gonna open up over the pole any minute now."

"See ya soon," Noah said. "Safe travels." He extended a hand.

"What, no ferocious make-out session?" Danny grinned and shook the hand.

"If the world is saved, I think I'll make out with everyone I see," Noah responded. "Go!"

Danny flew over to the jet that had been prepared for him. It was about time to head into the Ghost Zone with the ghost net and snag as many ghosts as possible for the power source.

He charged up the engines of the jet as a portal appeared in midair slightly above him. He looked down to see Dash waving at him; he waved back and then blasted off into the Ghost Zone, holding the Infi-map in front of him. "One ghost power source, coming up!" he said, pushing forward the lever on the dashboard to put the jet into top-speed. He blasted through a door to one ghost's lair, activating the ghost net; he flew back out with a lizard-like ghost stuck in the net.

"Okay," he said, looking back and smiling. "One down… ninety-six bazillion to go." He looked back at the Infi-map and traced the path to the next ghost lair.

For the next exhausting five and a half hours, he chased down ghosts and captured them, traveling everywhere he knew and many places he didn't know. Finally, he had what seemed like enough. "Awesome!" he said to himself. "I think this is gonna work!" He directed the jet back towards the portal.

A blast rocked the ship, and he looked around with fright. Two more small explosions followed; the third shot blasted the net at the connection to the jet. Danny watched helplessly as his last quarter-day's worth of work spilled out all around him. A smooth female voice stated, "_Auto-eject._"

"What?" Danny cried as the seat rocketed out of the jet. He turned intangible so that the rocket-powered seat passed through him, and then he looked back.

The jet flew in a wobbly path at the portal. The ghosts were pouring out of the net, laughing and swarming around him. Skulker was hovering above them, with a smoking cannon; he blew away the smoke. "We warned you once, ghost brat!" he declared. The thousands of ghosts that Danny had caught in his net swarmed him now in every direction.

"Wait! Let me explain!" Danny yelled as he floated backwards and was pushed aside. He avoided Johnny 13's swipe and backed into the center. "Our worlds are linked! If mine goes, yours goes, too! I have a plan!"

Skulker readied a cannon, ignoring Danny completely; he blasted Danny straight in the chest. Danny flew backwards into Vortex, who gripped him by the head and shocked him with a violent blast of lightning. How had Vortex escaped the Observants?

Danny screamed as Vortex dropped him, and he hugged his chest, looking up. "Look!" he shouted. "I know you hate my world, and wouldn't lift a finger to help it. But I thought you might care about saving your own!"

The angry ghosts descended upon him anyway. Danny blasted them off with a sphere of energy and flew up into the air. "You're dooming yourselves if you don't listen to me!" Danny yelled. "I know I've been a nuisance to you in the past. But hurting me anyway isn't doing anything for you right now. Tomorrow you can hunt me, Skulker. Tomorrow you can feed on my misery, Spectra. But that can only happen if we're all still here tomorrow! And for that to happen, we need to work together _today!_ Why can't you see this?"

Danny had expected some ghosts to maybe understand, but he was utterly shocked when Skulker spoke up.

"You raise a valid point," he grumbled.

Danny tried not to outwardly show his surprise and offend Skulker. He simply let Skulker take the floor.

"I don't care about the human world," Skulker said. "Not a bit. They've put themselves into this peril. But they also put us in peril, and as much as I would hate to save their skins… it seems that's the only way to save ours."

"It is," Danny said.

Skulker narrowed his eyes, but he gestured to all of the ghosts. "Say what you need us to do, and we'll do it," he said. "But only this once will we cooperate… and only because it's for our world. Write that in the history books: the ghosts came to save their world… protecting the human world was not a bonus, it was a price."

Danny nodded. "I'll make sure humanity gets the message," he said. "Follow me!" He turned and shot towards the portal.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, in the human world, there was an intense shock that had come with seeing the jet fly through the portal and crash into the side of the mountain—but Noah had insisted it was unmanned.<p>

"Then where _is_ he?" Dash uttered nervously, shifting from foot to foot. "Come _on_, Fenton, come _on_, it's coming!"

Jazz glanced over to Dash with teeth clenched as Maddie and Jack turned. "Dash?" Maddie said, raising an eyebrow. "Did you just say, 'Fenton?'"

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Dash apologized. "Force of habit. I'd been calling him Fenton since I'd known him."

"But Danny's right—" Maddie turned to the robot, and stared at it.

"Oh," Dash said, retracting his head into his turtleneck.

Maddie whipped the hair off of the robot. "A _robot?_" she gasped. "Where's Danny? Jasmine, where's your…" She looked to Dash, who was biting his lip and staring at the ground; then she looked to Jazz, who was staring at the portal. "You mean…"

Noah had seen Maddie take the hair off the robot; he flew over. "Mrs. Fenton?" he asked. "Did you…"

Maddie turned to him. "But… we _knew_ that Danny wasn't—" She pointed at Noah. "When we figured out you were a ghost… we scanned Danny to see if he was Danny Phantom. Nothing registered!"

"I'll explain that later," Noah said. "We should just wait for Danny now." He stared at the portal. "It looked like something was coming."

Maddie and Jack stared at the portal, amazed with the information they'd just registered, waiting for their son to arrive.

Then the portal exploded as thousands of ghosts swept out, heading directly towards the transfer device. The crowd cheered as the mass of ghosts enveloped it, spiraling around and latching on.

Noah pumped a fist, then grabbed the re-reformed ecto-converter and flew out the window to add its energy to the mix. All around, Danny' ghostly enemies, allies, and neutral presences were placing hands on the machine, preparing to send their energy through it. Walker, Desiree, the Box Ghost, the Lunch Lady, Technus, Skulker, Danielle, the executioner and archer ghosts, Frostbite, Pandora, Medusa, Vlad's ghost animal experiments, the ectopusses, the Ghost Writer, Amorpho, the Behemoth, the Fright Knight, Klemper, Undergrowth, Vortex, Hotep-Ra, Sydney Poindexter, Lydia and the three ghosts from Freakshow's original circus, Cujo, Nocturn, Dora and Aragon, the ghost squid and snake, Johnny 13, Kitty, Shadow, Ember, Spectra, Bertrand, Wulf, and Youngblood and his parrot…

And even though he couldn't see it, an invisible Vlad Plasmius had his hand on the very top of the machine, adding to the power.

Noah placed the ecto-converter on the ground and touched it with one hand while holding on to the transfer machine with the other hand.

"I still can't believe you guys agreed to help me," Danny said. "Looks like there _is_ a heart under all that cyber armor!"

"Don't get too sentimental," Skulker said in a low voice. "We're not here to save _you_, we're here to save _us_."

Danny didn't care; his plan was going to work and the earth would be saved. "Let's just get this party started!"

The ghosts activated their energy while the humans inside the machine scrambled to get things one hundred percent operational. A green glow surrounded the entire machine as they all strained to channel their energy through it.

"Tucker!" Danny called in a strained voice through the Fenton Phones. "How… much… longer?"

The Disasteroid swept through the stars, and finally, it was seconds from impact. Tucker wheeled around in his chair and shouted, "Now!"

The effect spread around the entire globe. Earth and water alike and plants and animals everywhere transformed into a clear shade of crystal as the asteroid plummeted down to the earth. The effect reached the other side just as it was about to touch down, and it began to fly through the center of the earth.

The ghosts were getting fatigued; Danny yelled, "Where's the asteroid?"

Then it burst through their end of the planet.

The masses of ghosts released their collective energies, and the planet returned to its normal state. The entire world began to cheer; families everywhere hugged and wiped sweat from their brows, relaxing in their chairs. The world was safe for another day.

Danny floated down to the ground and was immediately tackled over by Jazz, Sam, Tucker, Valerie, and Dash. Noah floated down behind him and smirked.

"Awesome," Sam said, laughing a little bit with relief.

"Nice job, little brother," Jazz said. "Or should I say… _hero!_"

Skulker loomed over him, and Danny stood up. "I don't know what to say, other than, thanks, Skulker," he said. "To all of you."

Skulker grabbed him by the front of the shirt. "Don't get too mushy on us, ghost child," he said. "Remember… I'll never stop hunting you." Then he continued with his characteristic hungry smile. "And now that you've saved your world… you're a much more valuable prize."

Skulker started to fly away, but suddenly Dash screamed, "WAIT!"

The ghosts all turned towards Dash, raising eyebrows and wondering what was so important; why he was so frantic. Dash rushed forward, until he was almost level with Skulker; but he wasn't staring at the mechanical-suited ghost next to him. He was staring at Youngblood, tears welling up in his eyes.

Youngblood stared back at Dash. "Do I… know you?" he said, his mouth hanging open in wonder. "You're… so familiar…"

Youngblood's skeleton parrot jumped up on his shoulder, and Dash gasped. "P-Polly," he stammered.

"Polly?" Youngblood said, looking at the parrot. "That's… That's right, that was your name…" He opened his eyes wide. "And… what…what about me?"

"Bobby," Dash choked.

Youngblood walked forward, closer to Dash. "You're…" He seemed to be trying to come to some sort of conclusion; his face contorted as he squinted at Dash.

"Bobby," Dash said again, only able to speak in one-word sentences; he dove forward to embrace Youngblood in a hug. Youngblood stared at the back of Dash's head.

"Bobby?" Valerie asked, still not comprehending. "Isn't that the ghost who's attacked the town several times? I thought his name was Youngblood…"

"It is," Danny whispered. "I think… I think that's Dash's brother."

Sam, Tucker, and Noah seemed to have been arriving at the same conclusion, but it took Danny saying it out loud for them to fully realize it. "Holy God," Jazz breathed.

"Dash said that his brother always wanted to be a pirate, and that he had a stuffed parrot," Danny said. "I mean… I never even considered…"

Then Youngblood finally spoke. "Dash," he finally said. "Dashy."

Dash couldn't say anything; he just kept hugging Youngblood.

The young ghost finally pulled away and floated in front of him. "We haven't played dress-up in so long," he said. "Didn't we used to play dress-up together? We'd be pirates, or cowboys, or astronauts… I did it without you because I was lonely, but it wasn't the same."

Dash nodded; his tears were freezing on his face, so he wiped them away.

"Why weren't you there?" Youngblood asked, not angrily; just genuinely confused.

Dash stared at him, sniffling. "Bobby… you died."

Youngblood hadn't even realized this. He looked up at the sky for a moment, then down at his hands, and legs, and his hat. He whimpered. "I'm… dead?"

"You're a g-ghost," Dash blubbered. "What did you think was…?"

"I don't know," Bobby said, looking at his skin with great interest. "I just didn't even realize… how long have I been…?" He glanced back at Dash. "You're so old… Are you in college?"

Dash gulped. "N-no," he stuttered. "Bobby…"

Youngblood floated back over to Dash and wiped away his brother's tears. "I don't know how I got here," he said quietly. "I don't remember learning all these words and things. I didn't remember anything other than being me—Captain Youngblood! I drove my pirate ship back into the lake, and then I don't remember how I got into a big green world, but I needed my parrot back, so I took it from your room. I'm sorry. I made Polly fly back to me because I missed him."

"Polly is a girl's name," the parrot squawked. "I demand that you rename me at once, you little bilge rat!"

Youngblood suddenly grabbed his skeleton parrot around the throat and handed it to Dash; it was suddenly a normal stuffed parrot again. Dash took it and looked up at Youngblood.

"I wanted to return that to you," Youngblood said. "And to play dress-up with you one more time." He threw his hat onto Dash's head. It landed and stayed, and then Youngblood laughed. "You're a pirate," he said. "You're… a pirate… just like me." And then he faded into the air with a whisper.

Dash stared at the space where his brother had gone. The pirate hat was still on his head, but it had turned into a hat badly constructed from black paper, with a poorly drawn white skull and crossbones on it. He took it off and started to tear up again. "So th-that's where that w-went," Dash sobbed.

Danny walked up to Dash and placed a hand on his shoulder. Dash turned around and looked; several news stations had been filming his exchange with Youngblood. But after a quick glance around, he had eyes only for Danny.

"I've had some shocks in my life," Dash said to Danny, wiping his tears again. "But this takes the cake. I… I'm glad that it happened, though."

"Is that all ghosts need?" Danny wondered aloud. "To find the person with whom they need to make peace? But what if that person is long gone? And are all ghosts like that, or is it just a rare occurrence when someone leaves too soon?"

"I don't care," Dash said. "It happened, and that's all that really matters at the end of the day to me." He took Danny's hands. "As long as you don't leave me too soon."

"Not a chance," Danny said, then blinked and looked around. "Here?"

"Here," Dash said, and then kissed him passionately.

The crowd spared no time; there was no moment of shock. There was just thunderous applause. Each boy felt the other laugh and smile, and returned with greater enthusiasm to their kiss. Dash lifted Danny up with brute strength, and then Danny lifted Dash into the air with his ghost powers. They spun in the air for a few seconds before returning to the ground and then boarding the helicopters back; they didn't let each other go the entire trip.

* * *

><p>Noah was leaving to visit back home the next day. But he would be back soon, because he loved living in Amity Park. His parents were coming with him; they were moving in to Vlad's old mansion, where the amazing technology would be perfect for them to continue their work.<p>

The world was much different now that Danny's identity was revealed. But the most amazing part of the whole experience was when Dash's parents apologized. Having experienced nearly the end of the world, they'd had more than enough time to reflect on how they'd treated their son—and watching Dash meet Youngblood on the news was the most profoundly impacting of it all. It was about time for them to, as Dash had put it, "suck it up" and embrace their son for who he was. And it didn't hurt that Dash was now revealed to be dating the superhero savior of the globe.

Tucker was elected the youngest mayor in Amity Park history. In fact, they had changed the age requirement just for him during the election campaign, because of his key role in saving the planet. He revealed the Amity Park statue of Danny Phantom—an exact copy of which stood in every capital of every nation. ("Capital!" Noah had exclaimed in his British accent, resulting in a good amount of laughter.) "And each will stand for as long as we have our world," Tucker had stated, "because thanks to Danny Phantom… we still have one."

* * *

><p>Noah was sifting through Vlad's inventions in his mansion right before he left; he wanted to get a sense of what he could be working with. He didn't know that Vlad was floating behind him invisibly.<p>

Vlad stroked his chin; he would definitely have to leave and become a nomad, but that was a life he could handle. Perhaps he could overshadow some dictator somewhere and rule that way. But for now… he had been defeated, fair and square. It was time to give the winner his reward.

Vlad flew down to his vault, and pulled out one invention he had just completed, but never had a chance to use. He placed it on a shelf facing outwards so that Noah would see it when he floated by; and then Noah would show it to Danny.

With his last act done, Vlad kissed his mansion goodbye, deactivated the Maddie hologram program, and flew out.

Noah floated by the device that Vlad had just planted there, and when he read the description, his jaw dropped. This was something he had to show Danny before he left.

* * *

><p>Dash and Danny sat on a hilltop, overlooking Danny's celebratory ceremony from far away. They held hands and sighed together. "I can't believe you didn't want to attend your own commemoration," Dash said, tousling Danny's hair.<p>

"Eh," Danny said. "Sometimes, I like to just sit on the sidelines… but I'd never give up my ghost powers for it."

"Good," Dash said. "Because I love you just the way you are." He and Danny started to kiss more intensely than ever, their hands migrating to different parts of each others' bodies; the passion mounted.

It was suddenly broken as Noah popped up over the crest of the hill. "Oh, sorry," he exclaimed. "Sorry for interrupting. But this is something you have to see right now!" He held up a strange device the looked roughly like a phonograph inside a blender.

"What is it?" Danny asked.

"What is it?" Noah blurted. "It's something that'll change your life with Dash forever, that's what it is!"

"What?" Dash asked, curiously.

Noah held the device closer to Danny. "There was a little note with a description on it," he said. "This thing can take the chromosomes of two people and combine them in a process like reproduction, and then form a gamete that can be implanted in a female and grown like a fetus, into a child! But the difference between this and sex is… it can be from _any two people._ Vlad was going to use it and steal some of your mother's DNA to make his child with her—yeah, I know, I'm sorry," he said as Danny grimaced. "But, Danny, you and Dash could have a kid!"

Danny looked over to his boyfriend with a wide smile. "Dash," he breathed. "Do you…?"

"Maybe in a little while," Dash laughed. "I don't want to end up on a new show called '14, Gay, and Pregnant.'"

"Oh, of course we'll wait," Danny said, smiling. "But… this is so great."

"It is," Dash said. "I can't wait to see what our kid looks like."

"Kid?" Danny asked, laughing. "Why singular?"

"You're right," Dash said, and leaned in close again, staring into Danny's sky-blue eyes.

"I'll leave you two alone," Noah said, grinning. "Danny… thanks for everything."

"Thank you for everything, too," Danny replied, breathing softly against Dash's cheek and feeling Dash's breath against his. "Have a good trip to England."

"Thanks!" Noah turned and flew away, leaving Danny alone with Dash again.

Without saying a word, they each knew; they both went back to the heated passion of their kiss. The world below was still intact, and the law below would allow them to be together not just now, but always.

What an amazing world it would be.

**THE END**


	10. Final Episode: Memoirs of a Ghost Boy

_I told myself I wouldn't make another episode, but I couldn't help it, because this series was so much fun to write, and I had a great idea for a final episode, taking place when Danny and Dash are double their age from the series. Mostly it's for my awesome readers and all the people who favorited my story. I'm really happy it got such a positive reaction! So here's the last episode I'll make for this series. The first two episodes of my next project, a Ben 10-Danny Phantom crossover, will come out by the end of the month (March 31). Hope you enjoy whatever you read from me!_

FINAL EPISODE—MEMOIRS OF A GHOST BOY

The front door burst open, and the following sound was a loud wail that carried through the entire house. Dan rolled his eyes at his husband. Dash bumped him in the side with his elbow and whispered, "Your turn."

Dan ran towards the door and encountered a distraught Robbie with tears streaming down his face. "What's wrong, buddy?" he asked.

"Sam used his powers _again_ while we were playing basketball!" Robbie howled. "It's not fair, it's _not fair!_"

"Oh, boy," Dan whispered and puffed out a sigh. "Okay, I'm going to go talk to him. Calm down, Robbie."

"I WANT GHOST POWERS!" Robbie screamed at the sky.

Dan called into the kitchen, "Dash, it's both of our turns," and ran outside to confront Sam as Dash went to comfort Robbie.

Sam was sitting on top of the swing set in ghost form, arms folded. He looked away as soon as he saw Dan coming.

"Sam, get down here," Dan said. "We need to talk again."

"I don't wanna," Sam said. "I don't care what Robbie said."

"He told me you used your ghost powers during your basketball game," Dan said. "How many times do I have to tell you, Sam? Your brother is extremely sensitive. Get down here now or you're going in the ghost shield for the rest of the day."

Sam glared at him over his shoulder, but he phased through the swing set and landed sitting on the ground, still facing away.

"Look at me, Sam," Dan said in a lower voice.

Sam turned around. He and his eight-year-old twin brother shared most of the same features—a skinny build (Dash was so disappointed), a small, thin nose, small ears, and big cheeks. But they had several important features that differed. Robbie had big, hazel eyes and blond hair; Sam had blue eyes and messy red hair when he was human. The red hair was interesting, since neither of them had red hair… but when Dan thought about it, his mother, his sister, and Dash's mother all had red hair… Dash's little brother Bobby had been red-haired, too. But Sam's ghost form had green eyes and green hair. Robbie… did not have a ghost form.

It was unclear why. They were fraternal twins, and Sam Manson had volunteered to be the surrogate mother. Though the twins mostly shared the same features, they did not share the one thing that Dan would most liked to have seen in his children. Not simply so they could carry on the Phantom legacy… so that scuffles like this wouldn't break out, and deep jealousies would not develop. But it was too late for that.

"Can you really not see how much it upsets your brother when you use your powers around him?" Dan said. "You've been given a great gift, but you have been strictly forbidden by your fathers to use it except when wholly necessary."

"It _was_ necessary!" Sam yelled. "I was going to lose!"

Dan groaned and put his head in one of his hands. "Sam, I meant—"

Sam jumped into a standing position and threw a fist at the ground. "And I deserve to win 'cuz I'm better than him 'cuz I got ghost powers and he didn't!"

Dan pointed a finger at his son, who gulped and knew it was really, really becoming serious. Dan never pointed his "ghost finger" unless he was really mad; just his finger had transformed, and the white pointer finger was in Sam's face. "Having ghost powers does _not_ mean you are better than your brother," he said. "It means you got luckier. Once. You're going to go to your room, and I'm activating the ghost shield, and you're going to think about this until dinner."

"Dad!"

"That's final. You've been absolutely forbidden to use your powers except when necessary. If you keep doing this, we're going to have to short out your powers every day until you understand what it's like for your brother. You know our friend Noah would be happy to invent something that stops you from using your powers."

Sam growled, but nodded. He started to fly up to his room, but Dan grabbed him by one of the legs, and yelled, "NO POWERS!"

Sam transformed back into his human form grumpily; a thin gray disk appeared at his waist and spread across his body. He walked back to the house.

As Dan was about to follow, to ensure that Sam went to his room and that the ghost shield was on, a teal-colored car descended from the sky and landed in the driveway. A tall woman with short red-orange hair popped out of the front seat and jogged over to Dan, who smiled and held out his arms. As they hugged, he laughed and said, "What is it now, Jazz?"

"Mountain ghost up in Montana," Jazz said. "The Guys in White have their hands full, and Noah's in England. You'll have to handle it, Danny. I figured I'd come to visit the kids anyway while I mentioned this to you, since I haven't seen them in ages. How are they?"

"Not great," Dan said. "Another fight."

"I did my thesis on ghost envy, if you remember," Jazz whispered. "Maybe I could talk to Robbie."

"That'd be good," Dan nodded. "I'm headed to Montana. Make sure Sam's in his room with the ghost shield up, okay? I've banished him there until dinner."

Jazz chuckled a little bit, and then tousled her brother's hair. "Go get 'em."

Robbie watched from a window in front as his father transformed and shot off into the sky. His eyes filled up with tears again, and he rushed up the stairs to his room and buried his head in his pillow.

The door opened some time later, and he looked up, not able to hide the fact that his pillow and face were wet with tears. "Hi, Aunt Jasmine."

"Hi, kid," she said. "Lemme talk to you for a second about growing up with a half-ghost brother." Robbie sat up, and she closed the door behind her.

* * *

><p>Dan flew at top speed to his parents' house, not too far away. Once they heard the situation, his mother led him to the family jet.<p>

"I'm so proud of you, taking care of all these ghosts like this," she said. "I remember, when you were just a teen, I was worried that the ghost-fighting genes wouldn't get to you! You ran away from every ghost we saw!"

"Little did you know that was because I needed a place to transform!" Dan laughed.

"You should visit for more than just asking for the jet sometime," Maddie said, jabbing a finger at him. "Your father would love to show off his new inventions, and I'd love to see how the kids are doing."

"Robbie's still got ghost envy," Dan said, shrugging.

"Oh. That must be so upsetting for him. You should get Jasmine to talk to him!"

"That's what she's doing right now," Dan smiled. "She came to visit this time instead of calling."

"Oh, good," Maddie said. "Well, you should come visit us next week. Sam and Noah are going to be heading over with their little girls!"

Dan nodded. But Lilith Fontaine and Lizzie Fontaine, Sam's and Noah's seven-year-old daughters, both had ghost powers… He probably wouldn't bring Robbie if he visited. That would be even more disappointing for Robbie. If he and Dash visited his parents that day, he'd probably leave the kids with Tucker, Valerie, and their son, Maurice, who didn't have ghost powers. Maybe it would be a relaxing afternoon.

They finally reached the Op Center, and Dan opened up the hatch that led to the detachable jet. "I'll visit soon, I promise," Dan called back. "If I can't, I'll call in between to make up for it!"

He detached the jet and blasted off, setting a course for Montana.

* * *

><p>Robbie rocked back and forth, his arms around his knees. Jazz rubbed his shoulder, then kissed him on the cheek and walked out.<p>

Was it true? Could he do everything his brother could do, with today's technology? But his brother didn't need gear. Why did he get the powers?

Did his other dad feel the same way? About the fact that his husband had powers, but he didn't? He'd never thought of that before.

And if he'd been born into any other family, he would definitely not have had powers. Why was this so hard for him to understand, then? Why did he still feel cheated, swindled?

He lay his head on the back of his pillow to think.

Across the hall, his brother was thinking in his room, too. He was mad at himself, because he didn't want to be thinking about what he'd done. But he was thinking about it anyway. He was born with his powers. He should be perfectly allowed to use them! It was his gift. What was the point of it all, then? Why would he have powers just to be forbidden to use them? He'd rather not have powers if he was banned from using them anyway.

He lifted his head as he heard buttons being pressed; the ghost shield was being deactivated. But why? His ghost dad was out stopping crime… so who was it who needed the ghost shield to be down to come in?

The ghost shield clicked. The walls ceased their orange glow. Sam backed up, ready to fly out the wall if necessary.

The door swung open.

It was an older man. Much older than his fathers. He had long hair—it was white, rather than gray, as one might expect from an old man. He wore a black suit, and his smile unnerved Sam to a great extent.

"Greetings, my boy," he said, walking over to the bed.

Sam scurried to the back of the bed and held up a hand. "Don't come any closer!" he shouted.

"I understand you're upset right now about being punished by your parents," the old man said.

"Who are you?" Sam demanded.

"So quick to ask questions," said the man. "Just like your father. Here, shake my hand like a gentleman would properly introduce himself. My name is Vlad."

The old man extended a hand very close to Sam. Sam jumped back in fright and phased through the wall, landing in the yard—and his heart stopped when the old man named Vlad followed, right through his wall.

"Don't be alarmed, my boy," Vlad said. He landed softly on the ground. "I'm like you. I'm a half-ghost. Though what are you—a quarter ghost?" He smiled, but Sam still backed away; he transformed into his ghost half and held up a threatening hand again.

Vlad nodded, understanding the boy's concern. "Did you know I invented the machine that created you before you were born?" he asked.

Sam lowered the hand slightly. "What?"

"My machine created you by taking your fathers' cells," Vlad said. "They never told you this?"

Sam shook his head. Up ahead, he noticed Robbie's head at the window. He was watching wide-eyed.

"You and your brother both. And your Aunt Danielle—I'm sure you know her? I created her, too."

Sam stared at the old man. Why was he here?

"I'm a half-ghost, too," Vlad said, "so I understand your predicament with your powers. It's sad, really. Not being able to use them whenever you want… for fear of offending your brother? But these are your powers. You should express them freely! I could help you with that."

"What?"

Vlad stepped closer again, but Sam still stepped back. He smiled softly, hoping it would help, but Sam didn't relax. "I've known your father for a long time," Vlad said, "and his friends as well. I think you should come live with me for a little bit."

Sam gawked.

"Think about it," Vlad said. "You could use your powers however and whenever you'd like. I'll even train you in using them… Your father won't train you yet, will he? I'd train you."

"I train myself when he's not around," Sam said. "I know how to use my powers."

"Can you do this?"

Vlad duplicated himself into five—then ten—then twenty—and still more. Sam gawked. "No!" he said. "No, I can't!"

Vlad merged back into one, and twirled his hand in the air; purple lightning coursed around his fingertips. "What's your element, son?"

Sam frowned. "My element?"

"Mine is electricity," he said. "It's allowed me to create some wondrous inventions. Your father's is ice. And his friend Noah—he has fire. What is your element? Is it ice, like your father?"

"I can control an element?"

"I could find out which one it is for you," Vlad said. "And you know what? I might even be able to give your brother powers."

Sam looked over his shoulder, at his brother. Robbie ran away from the window to get his father. This stranger freaked him out.

Sam turned back as Vlad reached into his suit, pulling out a scroll of some kind. "Take this, child," Vlad said. "Think it over." He tossed the scroll to Sam. "If you want to be treated like a king… If you want to become a better superhero than even your father… Just open this map, and say, 'Take me to Vlad's portal.' But you must always keep this little gift a secret from your parents. And maybe I can be your new parent." He vanished into the air.

The front door opened; Sam whipped around and turned invisible. He flew up to his room as Dash looked around and called, "Sam?"

"I'm up in my room, Dad!" Sam called as soon as he was back up. He passed his hand into the wall, and phased the map inside it. He'd look over it tonight, to see what it was. Something in his stomach told him it was a bad idea, but something in his anger at his parents ignored it completely. He just wondered how he would explain the ghost shield around his room being down.

* * *

><p>Dan flipped on the communicator; the ghost police were calling him from back home. What was it? He was already almost halfway to Montana already.<p>

"Hello?" he asked.

"Daniel? Daniel Fenton? It's Damon Gray."

"Lieutenant Gray!" Dan exclaimed. "I haven't heard from you in a while. How's it going?"

"It would be fine," he said. "Except we've got a situation."

"A situation?" Dan asked. "I'm halfway to Montana right now to rock Colosso's world."

"Turn around."

Dan's face fell solemn. "A big situation?"

"Unimaginably big. Like nothing we've seen since the days of the assaults of Undergrowth and Vulcrex and Riptide. Before our technology advanced to the point where it wasn't as much of a problem anymore. We need you here. The Guys in White can handle Colosso eventually; all he's doing is scaring away a few hikers."

"Why wasn't I notified before I left?" Dan asked.

"We didn't know about it until just a couple minutes ago," Damon said. "The Ghost Writer said it was a legend, passed down by memory. Which is ironic, because the ghost that we're dealing with… It eats memories."

"I remember this from my Ghost Mythology lectures," Dan said, a spark coming to mind. "You can't mean Memoire?"

"That's exactly right."

"Memoire… It's just a writhing mass of tentacles, isn't it? Its depictions look like the Flying Spaghetti Monster."

"It's amazing they even have depictions," Damon said. "This thing is constantly invisible except when it's closing in for the attack. It's been draining townspeople of their memories, leaving them in their basements, having no clue what's going on, where they are, who they are… anything."

"That's horrifying," Dan said. He entered a command to turn the jet around.

"You're telling me," Damon said. "We searched the house of Mr. and Mrs. Westing, who were apparently not seen in a while. Each was found in a separate room of their house, locked in with the windows closed. They didn't know that other people could exist—they freaked out when they saw us. They didn't remember how to brush their teeth or eat. And there were two more cases like that. This creature has been silently feeding on the townspeople for almost a week now."

"Will defeating it bring back their memories?" Dan asked nervously.

"We don't know," Damon said. "No one's ever defeated it before, as far as we know. You may have to destroy it entirely in order to stop it. Are you prepared to do that?"

"Considering what could continue happening to people, yes," Dan said. "These ghosts don't have feelings if they don't see any harm in draining people of their lives. So I have no feelings about stopping them for good."

"Good," Damon said. "Because it's already gotten about ten percent of the police force. I think it knows we were going after it. Our men claimed to see it, and then fired their Sealers; it didn't seal the ghost away. It just grabbed them, drained them, and spat them out on the street. It's not being subtle anymore."

"Christ," Dan said. "I should be back quickly."

"Thank you, Dan. I will see you here."

Dan ended the call and breathed deeply. He'd faced situations like this before, when he was half his current age, and had always come out of them triumphant. Of course, he had needed to be bailed out more than often—with Wardback, he had to go to Clockwork; with Hemozoa, he had to enlist Vlad's help; with Voromni, he'd gone to Desiree; and he didn't do much at all against Luster and Vulcrex.

But he was far more powerful now. He was a Scale 7.489 on the government's scale system; his power was almost at what he assumed to be its eventual max, 7.5. He'd defeated many, many ghosts many, many times. There seemed to be nothing that could stand against him. Which made it especially nice that he wasn't evil at this point in his future, like had almost happened in an accident at the Nasty Burger.

He couldn't bear to think of losing his family. He had to get home before they were put in danger by Memoire.

* * *

><p>"Why is the ghost shield going up around the house?" Sam yelled. "Why is the ghost shield up?"<p>

"Calm down," said Dash, walking into Sam's room. "This is for our protection."

"Ghost drill?" Sam asked.

"Not a drill," Dash said solemnly. "Amity Park is under attack."

"Attack? From who?" Sam couldn't help think of the strange old man who had visited.

"I don't think it's a _who,_ I think it's a _what,_" Dash said. "A very frightening ghost monster. I think your other dad is going to handle this."

"But he's in Montana," Robbie said, walking in.

"He's coming back," Dash said. "That's how important this is."

"Is Cassie okay?" Robbie said. He ran to the window and looked at the neighbors' house across the street, one of whom was Robbie's good friend Cassie.

"Yes, Cassie has her family's ghost shield up, too," Dash said. "Everyone in the town has their ghost shields up. Which is why I'm hoping Dan comes back soon; we don't want to lose its trail…"

"Can I go with Dad to fight the ghost?" Sam asked, hopping up and down on his bed.

"No," Dash said immediately. "Absolutely not. That one time Dad took you to fight the Box Ghost… That did not mean you could tag along everywhere. ESPECIALLY not for something this dangerous!"

"Come ON!" Sam said. "If Dad's there, it's not dangerous! You never let me do any cool ghost-fighting stuff!"

"You will have more than enough time to do that when you're older," Dash said. "When you've learned to use your powers responsibly."

"I can use my powers responsibly!" Sam whined.

"Like you used them to tease your brother today?" Dash stated firmly. "I wouldn't even tag along on this trip if I had the chance. It's just not safe for anyone but a master ghost-fighter."

Sam didn't hear his father speaking; he was boiling mad. He was definitely going to look over that map tonight. Vlad was right. No one cared about him.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Dash said. "Just not today."

Sam didn't answer. He just simmered on his bed. Dash figured it was best to just let him cool down, and he shook his head and left.

Robbie looked out the window. "Dad was right, you know!" he said, putting his hands to his hips. "Why do you want to go out there? It's freaky with any ghost around, but this one seems super-bad."

Sam turned to him in a rage, nostrils flaring. "I know YOU don't understand!" he shouted. "You're such a whining goody-two-shoes! I want to go out there and FIGHT! It's the way I was born! Your only superpower is to whine like a girl, and you use those superpowers all the time! Why don't I EVER get to use MY superpowers?"

Robbie burst out into tears anew and shouted, "TAKE IT BACK!"

"See, you're using your superpower right now!" Sam yelled. Abruptly he transformed into his ghost form, and then flew six inches above Robbie's head, shouting into his face. "WHY CAN'T YOU FLY, LITTLE GIRL? YOU CAN CRY BUT YOU CAN'T FLY?"

Robbie threw a fist at his brother's head in a blind fury, but Sam backed away and he fell over. Robbie leapt up wailing and stormed out of the room.

Sam huffed and transformed back. He was probably going to go whine to Dad now, huh. That was all he was good for. Tattling.

Dash charged up the stairs. "What happened?" he yelled. "Robbie just ran by me, screaming his head off about you!"

"He didn't go and whine to you?" Sam snorted. "That's a surprise. Maybe the things you're teaching me—to not be who I'm supposed to be—are rubbing off on him!"

"That's not funny, Sam," Dash said. "This is not healthy for you or your brother."

"What do you know about brothers?" Sam called with his back to Dash. "You and Dad didn't have any brothers!"

Dash's face clouded over, and his anger turned into sadness. That was not a true statement. He had had a brother once. A little brother named Bobby… or Robert, after whom they'd named Robbie.

And this whole shouting and screaming while running away was just like Bobby...

Just like… when Bobby stole the car…

…and drove it into the lake…

Dash suddenly had a horrible vision of what was to come. He sprinted down the stairs in three leaps, heaving frantic breaths, his heart pounding. He thought he heard something starting in the garage, and he charged through the house, knocking over a vase and several pictures and shattering them, as he heard the garage door opening, and he got to the door in what he thought was in time, and he ripped it open, and the engine of the hovercar suddenly revved and the car jolted out of the garage with Robbie at the wheel—

And Dash reached in through the open top just in time to grab Robbie's shirt collar. Frenzied, incoherent, insane thoughts rushed through Dash's frantic head—he was fishing with his dad and he caught a big one… He needed to hold on to this couch just a little bit longer as he and Dan were moving into their first house… Horse-collar tackle, on the defense, fifteen yard penalty, automatic first down…

As he ripped Robbie out of the driver's seat, the boy's head narrowly missed the edge of the windshield as the hovercar flew out the back of the garage, backed slightly into the air, and then crashed with an explosion into the house across the street. The ghost shield around that house flickered and died.

Dash gasped as he collected himself enough to see what had just happened. He ran to the edge of his yard's ghost shield, and he shouted across the street. "EDDIE! MARISSA! GET INTO OUR SHIELD NOW!"

Two parents and their nervous daughter, Cassie, about Sam's and Robbie's age, slammed open the front door, having realized what happened. They charged across the street, and Robbie appeared at Dash's side, holding out his hand for Cassie.

A whooshing sound came from overhead, and suddenly, an mammoth pink mass came into view. Cassie's mother screamed and threw Cassie forward with enough momentum to get her through the ghost shield—but suddenly, a large pink tentacle snapped at her and wrapped around her waist, pulling her upwards; a second reached out and entangled her screaming mother. The father, Eddie, ran at the beast, firing an ecto-pistol, but no damage could be seen, and he was suddenly set upon by a third tentacle which pulled him up into the sky.

The tentacles in the sky didn't seem to be attached to any main body segment; the entire body was apparently made of writhing pink tendrils, wrapped around themselves in a shape eerily similar to that of a human brain. This was Memoire, the memory-eating ghost. Dash could only watch, horrified; there was absolutely nothing else he could do.

Three tentacles with barbed tips rose from the creature's core as two red eyes bubbled to the surface from inside the tentacles. The barbed limbs shot forward and dug themselves into the family's foreheads; Dash covered Robbie's eyes and felt tears streaming down his son's face. The three family members then dropped to the ground, limp and unconscious, and Memoire turned towards the pale father and son behind the ghost shield.

"Delicious," came a low, rumbling voice from within. "Thank you for sharing." It lifted off into the sky and vanished.

* * *

><p>Sam had been watching from his window; he turned away, horrified, and needed something to erase the memory of what he'd just seen.<p>

The image kept flashing through his head of the scene he'd just witnessed. First, he was certain that the car crashing into the house had to have killed someone. But he saw his father and brother rush to the edge of the ghost shield, and all three of his neighbors rush out unharmed… He'd been so relieved, and then his chest grew heavy and a gray puff of air escaped his mouth. He'd learned that was what his dad called the "ghost sense," which let you know when a ghost was around. His mouth was still coppery from the taste left by the ghost sense. He'd found that metal objects like coins and machinery bent slightly towards him when he was angry—Vlad had said everyone had an "element." Was his element metal?

And then, following the ghost sense, a gigantic tentacled brain descended from the sky and ate his neighbors' thoughts directly out of their heads. It was so, so horrifying to see… Poor Cassie and her parents…

And the worst part of it was, if his father had trained him, he might have been able to do something. He could have helped them. Fought off the beast. How tough could a floating brain be?

That was it. He was going to take the map and pay Vlad a visit tonight. Vlad was absolutely right in every way. And Sam wanted so badly to be trained to use his powers as well as his father… if not better. He'd never seen his father make two dozen clones before, but Vlad did it instantly and without getting even a little bit tired. Vlad could train him to eclipse his father's fame.

He suddenly noticed a strange book on one of his shelves that he'd never seen before. It was definitely new—he didn't own any books that were purple with green swirls on a part of the binding instead of a title. He pulled it out of the shelf, and there was a little sticky note on it that had just one letter: "V."

This book must have been from Vlad! He pulled off the sticky-note, and there were only two letters on the front: GZ. What did GZ stand for…? Ghost Zone?

His suspicions were confirmed by opening the book to its first page. Inside was a fantastical world of levitating doors and green-shaded landscapes that defied imagination. A place his father had never taken him to, saying it was "too dangerous." Well, Vlad wouldn't have such qualms. Vlad would certainly take him here!

He flipped forward a couple of pages… looking for something of interest. He wondered if the book had anything on the portals that have been built by humans. He skimmed the book until he saw a heading on one page that intrigued him.

_Natural Portals into the Human World_

_Some paths into the human world appear naturally, without warning. The only known method of detecting these portals is through the Infi-map, see next page._

He flipped forward a page, and there was a sticky note on the subsequent page that he hadn't noticed. On it was written, _The Infi-map: In case you were wondering._

He'd look at the blurb on the Infi-map after this section. He continued reading on the natural portals.

_These paths can appear anywhere, at any time. Going through a portal also may not lead one to the same time period from which one has left. There are, in fact, many portals, but they only remain open for a short time before closing forever._

_Some portals are ripped through by Transdaemons, or ghosts with the ability to tear open portals to the human world from the ghost dimension. They all take the form of animals, and their claws are created with a strange power; these animals are morphed into ghostly creatures by being halfway through the location of a ghost portal as it opens. The stress alters their DNA and combines it with that of a ghost. Aethri, an eagle ghost, Wulf, a wolf ghost, and Ravadge, a honey badger ghost, are the three known examples. These animals have taken on intelligence that rivals humans. The only known ghosts able to create portals into the Ghost Zone who were not once human animals are Pariah Dark (but anyone with the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire could theoretically do this) and the nomadic, mysterious ghost Wardback._

_See Half-ghosts for more information on this next topic: Half-ghosts are created when a human makes contact with an opening portal. These can be natural portals or man-made portals. In general, this is a highly unstable method of developing powers. All adult humans who have become half-ghost through exposure to a natural portal develop a severe condition known as ecto-acne, and all have passed away within two years of contracting their powers—sometimes due to the ecto-acne, other times due to persecution or ghost attacks._

_Ecto-acne will only affect adults in this way. Any human under the average age of twenty will not be affected by ecto-acne, but their survival is still not guaranteed if placed under such high stress as their genome being altered by ghost DNA. There are currently five known survivors of the experience who are immune to ecto-acne, three of whom reside in the Ghost Zone. The sixth current surviving half-ghost has ecto-acne and should pass away shortly._

Depending on how long ago this book was written, it probably already had happened. Sam was very interested in this book already… and he didn't read much literature. Mostly he just tried to use his ghost powers quietly in his room to practice. He flipped forward a page to the Infi-map.

_The Infi-map is an entity of incredible knowledge. It can take the user to any point in the Ghost Zone, simply by voicing aloud the destination. In addition, it can take the user to any object that is sought, if that object be in the Ghost Zone._

_It is strange and powerful. A multitude of commands is at the disposal of its holder. The map can be sent to another ghost or person and carry them to any destination; it can take the user to any random location if the user is uncertain of where to go; it can take the user to his or her destiny._

_The origin of the Infi-map is unclear. In some legends, the great ghost god Ectus bestowed the map to his son Pariah in exchange for the Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire that Pariah had forged; Pariah then used the power of the map to send his father thousands of years into an alternate past for banishment and take back his artifacts. It is known that King Pariah Dark had possession of the map at some point; it is not clear whether there is a ghost god Ectus, as he is on the edges of Ghost Zone mythology. What is known for certain is that the Infi-map was given to the inhabitants of the Land of the Far Frozen for protection after it was taken from Pariah's castle._

_A more likely explanation is one based on a story passed down by a single witness who swears its truth. Thousands of years ago, a strange ghost known today as Wardback appeared out of seemingly nowhere, carrying the Infi-map. The vagueness of this story in fact speaks to its validity; the simplest explanation tends to be the truth, and although this explanation still does not cover why the Infi-map came into existence, it makes the phenomenon simpler to explain in that there is no explanation. This story does not give off the air of mythology, which would provide a much broader backstory. Thus the Infi-map is accepted to have appeared from nowhere, and is somehow connected to Wardback; though no one has encountered Wardback to inquire about this. However, given Wardback's inexplicable ability to create natural portals into the Ghost Zone, he seems the most likely to be connected to the Infi-map._

He didn't understand most of it, but it was still very interesting to him. Did his father have books like this? Why didn't he share them?

Speaking of his dad… maybe… there was something in here on the ghost that attacked their neighbors…?

He flipped through the book rapidly, scanning the pictures, but the book seemed to be only on history and artifacts, and not specific ghosts. Whatever. He phased the book into his wall, next to his map, and then lay back on his bed, waiting for nightfall.

As he sat in bed, looking at his ceiling, he suddenly remembered what happened to their neighbors again, and he felt sick. Getting out of here would mean avoiding that creature, too.

* * *

><p>Dan landed outside the police station, and turned back into a human to phase through the ghost shield. Most of the ghost shields nowadays prevented half-ghosts from entering or leaving as well as full ghosts, but the police station purposefully did not upgrade their shield so that Dan could come in, too.<p>

He opened the door, and Lieutenant Gray was glad to see him. He walked over and placed an arm over Dan's shoulder. "I'm very glad you're here," he said. "There's just been another reported attack. All your husband said was that a car accident destroyed your neighbors' ghost shield, and Marissa, Eddie, and Cassie were all drained."

Dan couldn't speak; he could only gape. He'd known them since their kids were newborns. This had to stop.

"We've got a lock on Memoire," Lieutenant Gray said. "It's stayed in the general area around your house. In fact, it's stayed almost still since the attacks. It might be waiting for you to return to your house so that the ghost shield goes down momentarily."

"What?" Dan asked. "How would it know?"

"It now has control of the memories of its victims. It's got Eddie's memories, and it can access them. It knows you're half-ghost and thusly you need the shield down to get back into your house."

"Well, that's not happening," Dan said. "I'll need to get a hold of Dash and tell him not to open the shield when he sees me."

"Or your family could hide in your son's room," Lieutenant Gray suggested. "Your son's room has a separate ghost shield, doesn't it? We could get your family to hunker down there while we lure Memoire to your house with a momentarily deactivated ghost shield. Then, when it's inside, we can activate it again to trap him!"

"Brilliant!" Dan exclaimed. "I wish I'd thought of that. I'll give Dash a call." He pulled out his phone, but then thought for a moment. "The ghost shield generator is pretty far from Sam's room. I'll tell Dash to get the Spirit Harpoon and its portable ghost shield generator while he makes the run back to the safe spot."

"I'll get our special units set up with cloaking devices," Lieutenant Gray said. "You might need some help on this."

"Have them bring the exo-skeleton," Dan said as he put the phone to his ear to call Dash. "I'll tear through him like a wet tissue."

* * *

><p>"Why are you bringing me in here?" Robbie cried out as Dash dragged him into Sam's room.<p>

"Why are you bringing him in here?" Sam shouted.

"Get along," Dash bellowed. "You're in here because I'm going to deactivate the house's Ghost Shield."

Robbie and Sam forgot they were fighting; their eyes bugged out. "What? WHY?" Robbie choked.

"To lure Memoire in for the attack," Dash said. "Memoire is the creature you just saw. Your dad is going to come home, so we're going to have to deactivate the ghost shield to let him in, right? Then Memoire will swoop in, and we'll reactivate the ghost shield to trap him."

"What about you?" Sam asked tremulously.

"I'm taking the Spirit Harpoon, and the portable ghost shield projector it carries will protect me," Dash said. "And you, Robbie… I know Sam will have to stay in this room. But you'd better NEVER leave, under ANY circumstance. If something happens to me or your other dad, the police will come and get you to make sure you're safe. No matter what happens, do not leave this room. And if I catch you fighting, you're both grounded for a year!"

"What if the ghost shield around my room malfunctions?" Sam asked seriously.

Dash scratched the back of his head. "Fly yourself and your brother as fast as you can to the police station," he said after a small pause. "Or turn invisible and hide under the floor of the basement. But whatever you do, do NOT fight him. Your father isn't even going to go near Memoire without the exo-skeleton readily available."

Sam folded his arms, but nodded and sat compliantly on his bed. Dash left the room, and seconds later, and orange glow surrounded the inside of the walls of Sam's room. Robbie looked about nervously, mostly at the window.

"Are you scared for our parents?" Sam said.

Robbie shot him a glare and looked away.

"No, I meant, I am too," Sam said quietly. Robbie gave him a sideways glance, but he had no response.

* * *

><p>"Do this right, Daniel," said Lieutenant Gray as they approached Dan's house as the sun was disappearing below the horizon. "You have one shot at luring Memoire in, so you'll have to make the act convincing."<p>

"I'm a master actor," Dan said. "I had to do some good acting to cover up some slip-ups when I was still keeping the powers a secret."

"And don't you dare mess up in the battle, either," Lieutenant Gray continued. "Because if he absorbs your memories, he's going to know the code to unlock the ghost shield in your son's room."

Dan gulped. "Didn't think about that."

"Have your husband change the code just to be safe. Not that I think you'll lose."

"I understand. I'll mention that." Dan gave Dash another quick call, and then when he was finished, he transformed into a ghost and passed through the floor. It was now or never. He didn't want Memoire to leave.

"He'll probably go down into your basement to find the ghost shield generator once he's trapped," Lieutenant Gray said. "Make sure you get him quick before he either breaks the shield or gets through your portal somehow."

"Noted," Dan said. "Here it goes."

He became visible right beyond the ghost shield, and then yelled inside, "Dash, put the shield down really quick for a moment!"

As the shield disappeared for the briefest of moments, Dan knew that the plan had worked; a puff of blue breath escaped his lips, and he turned around to see a hulking mass of tentacles zoom by him and squeeze through the door into the house.

Dan knew that the others in the cloaked jet had seen this; they dropped the exo-skeleton in response. Dan phased through it and boarded it, then dropped inside as the ghost shield went back up.

Advantage, Fenton. He had the exo-skeleton and his enemy was trapped. He passed by Dash, inside the portable ghost shield, holding the Spirit Harpoon; he gestured down to the basement, and Dan jetted down the stairs.

Memoire was hovering in the center of the basement, looking for the ghost shield projector. His tentacles were oozing out and probing all corners of the room; it made him look like spaghetti made of meat. He was looking around at the virtually empty basement. It had almost nothing inside it, because it was a training center for Dan and Noah and even some of the police. Nothing valuable was anywhere nearby as a result. When the beast saw Dan in the exo-skeleton, it shuddered—it knew the suit's power, since its brain contained the memories of some ghost police officers who had worked next to Dan.

Dan wasted no time; he blasted an extremely powerful jet of energy. It smashed into a clump of tentacles above Memoire's eyes, which snapped off and wriggled on the ground ceaselessly. Memoire pounced at Dan, tentacles coming at him from all sides; Dan threw on an energy shield, then multiplied into three dozen different clones that appeared behind Memoire and blasted away at the monster's back.

Memoire pounced to the side, hundreds of severed tentacles falling off him like chipping wallpaper, and he howled in pain. From the depths of his swirling tentacles, something emerged—he was pulling something out from his core, something shiny and metal, shaped like a weapon—with a large FB printed on it: a patented Fenton Bazooka.

"Watch out!" Lieutenant Gray shouted. He was watching from a camera and he noticed the weapon as immediately as Dan did. "He's gonna try and send you into the Ghost Zone!"

But that was not Memoire's intention. The intelligent ghost must have stolen the weapon from a ghost police officer in order to secure an escape route if necessary. He blasted the device at himself, and he was sucked into a ghost portal that closed just as Dan tried to follow.

Dan shot a nervous glance at the ghost portal. "Tell anyone with a portal to make sure it's shut and locked up tight," he said. "We're going to have to go into the Ghost Zone and track Memoire, in case it has a way back into our world."

"We'll take the Specter Speeder II," Lieutenant Gray stated. "I'll get it ready immediately. You can probably let your sons out of the room if you make sure the ghost portal is impenetrable."

"I'll tell Dash," Dan said. "I'll meet you in the Ghost Zone."

"Go, as quickly as possible. No time to lose!"

* * *

><p>Sam flew silently down to the basement. It had been about an hour since his father left. Dash was having coffee next to the Spirit Harpoon; he was going to stay up all night to make sure nothing happened to the kids. He planned on having everyone sleep in Sam's room tonight. Little did he know Sam wouldn't be there.<p>

Sam had left a note on his pillow, and taken the Infi-map down to the basement. Now there was just one thing left to do… Get someone whose finger would work on the fingerprint-scanning portal door opener.

He flew back upstairs, silently, and hovered over his father, who was finishing up his coffee. Sam took a deep breath—he had never tried this before—and dove into his father's back, overshadowing him.

Sam stood up with Dash's body, and looked at his fingers. "I'm old," he whispered. Then he turned and ran down to the basement.

He thought he heard Robbie ask, "Dad?" as he darted to the basement; not good. He'd have to work quick if he wanted to open the portal and leave before Robbie got here, snooping as usual.

He bounded across the lab floor to the fingerprint scanner, and placed a finger down. The portal clicked, signifying it was unlocked, and Sam threw the switch that opened it—a red light flashed once through the house and a loud BEEP followed. Darn! He forgot about that alarm system that told when the portal was being opened!

"Dad?" came Robbie's concerned yell. Sam jumped out of his father's body, and grabbed the Infi-map as Robbie came charging down the stairs. Dash shook his head to clear it and gasped at the open portal.

"To Vlad's portal!" Sam yelled, and as he was yanked by some otherworldly force through the machine, he felt a small hand close around his ankle.

The map plummeted through the Ghost Zone; both boys stared around with amazement at the world they'd never seen, until both realized simultaneously what was actually happening. "Let go!" Sam roared, kicking at Robbie's hands. "You're not my brother anymore!"

"No!" Robbie yelled, tightening his grip on Sam's leg. "We need to go home! Sam, what are you doing?"

"Vlad actually wants to be nice to me!" Sam screamed. "He appreciates the fact that I'm special, way more than our dads do!"

"That guy who broke into our house?" Robbie shouted back, amazed. "But it's probably because he wants to kidnap you! Sam, you love our dads! Why are you doing this? Stop this thing! Take us home!"

At the words, "Take us home," the map whipped around and shot in the direct opposite path. Robbie's eyes widened as he realized what was going on.

"No!" Sam blurted. "Take us to Vlad's portal!"

The map snapped backwards again.

"Take us home!"

"Take us to Vlad's portal!"

"TAKE US HOME!"

"VLAD'S PORTAL!"

"HOME!"

"STOP STANDING IN MY WAY OF FINALLY GETTING A PARENT WHO LOVES ALL OF ME!" Sam finally howled, and held a hand to his brother's head. Robbie whimpered as a furious blast of ecto-energy smashed into his face and sent him spiraling backwards into the dark, green stretches of the Ghost Zone.

Suddenly, Sam regretted everything. His brother was spinning into the distance, a helpless human in the Ghost Zone. What could happen to him? And it was all because Robbie was under the impression that he was protecting his brother. Sam suddenly realized that, even though Robbie hated the fact that Sam had his powers, Robbie still loved his brother… way more than any stranger possibly could. And Sam loved his brother back. He couldn't let this greed for power get his brother hurt.

He even regretted waiting this long to think that much about it. He tugged on the map, and it stopped. He rolled it back up and yelled to it, "Find my brother! And bring him backwards!"

The map lunged out of his hands, and Sam suddenly felt that his word choice was awkward. "Bring him back" would have been better than "bring him backwards." Would the map understand?

Several moments passed by, and Sam got worried. "Robbie?" he yelled. "ROBBIE!" He flew at his top speed towards where the map had gone away—and then suddenly, a gigantic red-furred beast with four arms and giant fangs blasted through a door in front of him. It looked like he'd pictured it from his dad's stories: the Behemoth.

He shrieked and threw his arms in circles, trying to gain momentum to shoot backwards, but it was too late. The Behemoth had spotted him, and it swung an arm across his path, smashing into him and sending him flying. A subsequent energy blast from all four arms knocked him unconscious. The stress shorted out his energy, and he turned human, floating aimlessly through the Ghost Zone just like his brother.

* * *

><p>Robbie's eyes opened up again moments after the impact of his brother's energy blast, and he looked around, frightened. What had happened? His brother had just attacked him… and left him alone, powerless, in enemy territory, where any malevolent ghost could pop up out of nowhere and strike him dead in an instant. He bit his bottom lip and tried to stay calm, but his vision was blurred by tears and he had no idea where he was and he was so vulnerable it made every muscle tight and limp at the same time.<p>

His worst fears were immediately realized.

A thick pink tentacle wrapped around his head. He screeched and pummeled it, throwing it off his head; another one wrapped around his waist, coiling around his arms and then legs and immobilizing him. Another came and wrapped around his mouth, sealing it shut and silencing the screams.

A large pink mass of tentacles lifted itself in front of him. The tentacles were wrapped around themselves, forming a solid mass that resembled a brain… it was Memoire. It opened two horrifying red eyes inside the tentacles, and a deep, resonating voice came from its core.

"What is a wee little human boy doing in the Ghost Zone…?"

Another tentacle, this one with a blade-like fixture on the tip, lifted itself in front of Robbie. He eyed it with extreme fright, and then the blade shot forward and dug itself directly into his forehead, slightly above the center of his eyes. He screamed into the tentacle that gagged him.

"Ah, so that's it," said the tentacle ghost. It made a slurping sound, and laughed. "A fight with your sibling. How sad. And how much strife you have had, being the child without powers. Do not worry, though. Soon… it will all be forgotten. Everything."

His eyes went unfocused and he felt dizzy. He felt like something was leaving him—something important. Memories flashed by in his head. He was at school. He was crying because Sam had used his powers to cheat in checkers. He was playing little league soccer. He was overjoyed with the swing set that Santa had brought. He was playing in a sandbox. He was a big boy, throwing out his pacifier. He was looking up at a mobile with spaceships on it, lying in a crib.

Then he was nowhere.

A strange sound came from the ghost's left; he turned as a scroll shot out of nowhere and smashed into the tentacles holding the boy, slicing most of them in half and carrying the boy away with it. The ghost's eyes narrowed, but he had just about finished feeding anyway. And his tentacles would regenerate in time.

The map shot forward, the front end pressed against the unconscious boy's stomach, carrying him along. Its holder's orders had been to bring the boy backwards, and so it would.

The map suddenly wrapped around the boy and stopped short. A green glow surrounded the area it had stopped. The map had brought the boy directly to the spot where a portal would appear.

The green glow suddenly twisted and warped, and then it shot from all sides into Robbie's limp body as a portal appeared; he suddenly woke, his eyes shooting open in pain; his skin was suddenly fiery as if stricken by lightning, his hair turned black, his eyes turned red, and the map brought him backwards thousands of years in time.

* * *

><p>"REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED. REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED. REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED. REAL WORLD ITEM DETECTED."<p>

Sam slowly opened his eyes to see that he was being pulled into the Specter Speeder II. He was looking into his father Dan's concerned eyes; his father gasped and laughed in relief. "Sam," Dan choked, and hugged him tight. "Sam, where is your brother?"

Sam stared blankly into the wall.

Dan released the hug and held his son's shoulders tight. "Sam. _Where is Robbie?_"

"Robbie…" Sam bit his lip. "I… I accidentally… But I…" He paused and looked up at his parents, who were both incredibly nervous. "I sent the map after him," he said. "I told the map to bring him back. But then… I was attacked. Did he come back?"

"The map?" Dan asked. "What on Earth… The Infi-map?"

"Yes…"

"Where did you get the Infi-map?" Dan demanded. "And… if Robbie has it… he could get back. Unless he's unconscious in the Ghost Zone. But the Real World Item detector only found you!"

"Only me?" Sam started to hyperventilate. "Robbie. ROBBIE! WHERE IS HE?"

"We still have a mission to handle!" yelled a dark-skinned man currently piloting the Speeder. His nametag read Lieutenant Gray. "Finding Memoire is still of critical importance. If your other son was here, we could find him immediately and not waste time; since he's not, we can't track him, but he appears to have a way back. Right now, we need to neutralize the threat before any more lives are destroyed!"

"What's going on?" Sam whimpered.

Dan turned to the man piloting the Speeder. "Go on, Damon." He turned back to his shivering son as the Speeder continued hurtling through the green dimension. "We're tracking an incredibly dangerous ghost," Dan said. "Named Memoire. You are so, so lucky not to have run across him. He'd have sucked you dry of your memories and left you not knowing who you are or where you were or the answer to two plus two."

"Robbie," Sam moaned.

"He's not in the Ghost Zone," Dan said. "So he must be safe at home. He probably thought you made it wherever you were going and THEN sent the map back to him. Where were you going, Sam?"

Sam shook his head and placed it against his father's chest. "I don't want to go anymore!" he cried out.

"Tell me where you were going, Sam!" Dan said more sternly.

Sam looked up. "Vlad gave me the map," he said.

Dan blanched. "VLAD?" he shouted. "Vlad's been gone for fourteen years. Noah shot him into deep space!" He blinked rapidly. "But that explains Frostbite's concern over yet another disappearance of the Infi-map…"

"He gave me the map and told me to go down to our portal, and tell the map to take me to Vlad's portal," Sam whispered. "He said he'd let me use my powers however I wanted."

"And you left, but… you turned back?" Dan said, his temper softening. "What made you—?"

"Daniel. We have it on radar. Memoire is close."

Dan grabbed his son and hugged him tight. Sam was absolutely shocked to feel a tear drip onto his shirt.

"We'll find your brother," Dan said. "But for now I have to go fight this creature."

Sam's eyes widened and he grabbed his father around the waist. "Don't go, Dad," he whispered.

"Maybe defeating it will get back Cassie's memory, and everyone else who's been drained," Dan said. "But we don't know that until I can beat it… and I also need to stop it from attacking anyone else. Understand?"

Sam nodded slowly, his lower lip trembling.

"And then we'll find Robbie," Dan said. "There's no way we won't find him. You've got to trust me. I love you and your brother so much."

"I love you too, Dad," Sam said, and huddled up close to him; when Dan backed away, Sam leaned back against the wall and stared teary-eyed at the ceiling.

"I'll be right back for you," Dan said. "I just have to beat the stuffing out of this ghost monster. I've faced worse. And we brought the exo-skeleton, of course."

"Detaching it now," Lieutenant Gray announced. "Get inside the exo-skeleton; we're in Memoire's path and he'll be here in moments."

"I'm going in," Dan said, and passed through the floor of the Speeder. He phased into the exo-skeleton and curled a fist inside the suit.

Memoire was upon them in moments. He was invisible to the naked eye, but the exo-skeleton's windshield had been wired like the Spooktacles and could spot Memoire from a distance. Dan blasted after the creature, which turned to flee when it saw him. He shot blast after blast, knocking off more and more tentacles, and the core was beginning to be revealed—a red sac of fluid that pulsed eerily like a heart.

Memoire reared back and wrapped itself around the suit; but the creature suddenly realized that something was terribly, terribly wrong. Dan's ice powers froze the tentacles solid, and like Undergrowth's roots, it was doing terrible damage to the creature.

The fluid inside the sac swirled rapidly as Memoire was apparently trying to devise an escape plan, but Dan was not about to let this one get away. The ice traveled up Memoire's remaining tentacles, and the fluid froze solid; the membrane surrounding it began to crack.

Dan broke away, and pieces of frozen tentacle drifted around the Ghost Zone. The Speeder approached them; he looked in the window to see Sam watching him back, and he smiled to himself.

Activating the Fenton Peeler that had been built into the redesigned exo-skeleton, he aimed and blasted a special energy at the helpless, frozen beast. Its tentacles were shredded off, layer after layer of icy shells blasting off in different directions, and then the membrane was sliced into a thousand pieces.

The fluid in the sac was all that was remaining; as it defrosted, wisps of smoke raced out in the thousands, either dissipating into the air or heading out in different directions. He'd beaten the creature without breaking a sweat… the exo-skeleton certainly helped.

"Memoire is gone," Lieutenant Gray confirmed. "His ecto-signature is completely wiped out. You know how ultra-sensitive this tracker is. I'm entirely confident he's gone for good. Thank you, Daniel."

"Just my job, Damon," Dan said. "Did you see those wisps of smoke? Were they the memories?"

Lieutenant Gray stroked his chin. "I'll check in with the station." He put up a video call, and Dan could faintly see through the Speeder window that there seemed to be a celebration going on in the police station.

"Is that good?" Dan asked, flying up to the side. He flew out of the exo-skeleton and secured it to the bottom of the Speeder again.

"It certainly is," Lieutenant Gray smiled. "The people who were drained have their memories back."

"Is Robbie back at home?" Dan asked nervously.

"I'll check with someone. …No, he's not at your house. But there aren't many places he could be."

"I don't think I can wait much longer to find him," Dan said. "If Vlad has him…"

"We'll look around, Daniel, don't—"

There was a pause.

"Damon?"

"Daniel, there's a very powerful ghost approaching. Don't let your guard down."

"What?" Dan said, whipping around.

"Approaching—God, that's fast! Watch out!"

And suddenly, a form flew by an arm's length away from Dan. He turned around to see an unexpected arrival floating behind him.

"We meet again, Phantom," said Wardback, smiling widely. "What a backwards twist. I've finally figured it all out; have you?"

"What?" Dan said, still not fully comprehending. But suddenly, something was coming to him. The hairstyle… the facial arrangement… it was…

"Sam, what did you tell the map when you sent it to Robbie?" Dan asked through his headset.

Wardback stretched into a standing position, and transformed from his ghost form into the boy that Dan had seen so long ago, when he'd first met Wardback. Dan had never made the connection in his memory.

"I… sort of misspoke," Sam answered into the communicator. "I meant to ask it to bring him back, but… I asked the map to bring him backwards."

Wardback smiled even wider. "Hi, Dad."


End file.
